


Chanyeol Park and the Child of Gaea

by hyperlydian



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Adventures, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Percy Jackson AU, Slow Burn, but i cant deny its true, everyone is a demigod, only for 30k but it burns imo, that sounds bad, threat of possible incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2018-11-07 16:10:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11062485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperlydian/pseuds/hyperlydian
Summary: Kyungsoo would much rather spend most of his summer elbow deep in the engine of his ’69 Charger than travel across the country to slay a monster, but he's never been very good at denying Chanyeol anything.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> originally written for runandgun 2013 for hoaegi.
> 
> Obviously, I did not write the Percy Jackson books, and I chose to base this AU off of the _Percy Jackson and the Olympian’s_ series, so anything not mentioned in those was fair game.
> 
> Thank you to Kendra (my beta, writing dominatrix and cheerleader), Konnie (my favorite chansoo shipper, among other things) and Kitten (my sounding board) for all their help, and thank you to the runandgun mods for making this possible!

Kyungsoo wipes the sweat out of his eyes using the sleeve of his jumpsuit, leaning under the hood of the car to take another look at the spark plug he’s trying to replace. It’s warmer in the garage than it should be for April, but then, Maryland humidity has never been known to abide by the calendar, and Kyungsoo’s extra layer of clothing under his jumpsuit isn’t helping the feeling of general stickiness in the air.  
  
He drops the old plug down next to the other five he's already switched out, wiping his hand on the leg of his jumpsuit before beginning to screw the new one in.  
  
“With a muscle car like that, someone might think you're trying to compensate for something.”  
  
Kyungsoo’s fingers almost slip on the wrench from surprise, because even though he can’t see who's speaking, he only knows one person with a voice that low. Taking a steadying breath, Kyungsoo finishes screwing in the new spark plug and then leans back from where he’s been bent over the open engine of the car, trying to look casual, like his insides aren’t still trying to have some kind of hoedown in his belly.  
  
“It’s a ’69 Dodge Charger: of course I’m compensating for something,” Kyungsoo says, quirking an eyebrow at Chanyeol from across the garage. “It just might not be for what you think.”  
  
“Sixty-nine?” Chanyeol waggles his eyebrows and takes a few more steps into the garage so he can see the engine over Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “I think it might be _exactly_ what I think.”  
  
Rolling his eyes, Kyungsoo holds up the wrench in his hand. “Hang on for a sec, I gotta put this back together before I forget.”  
  
The Charger, a gift from his mother for his fifteenth birthday, is Kyungsoo’s _baby_ , and the garage that he’s been hanging around at in his neighborhood since he was a kid (and then helping out at, once he got a little older) is letting him keep it safe and out of the way in the back while he’s working on restoring it.  
  
The garage is closed on Sundays, but Kyungsoo's known where the spare key is kept for years, so he and Chanyeol are alone. Kyungsoo isn’t prepared, has to make himself take a moment while he’s turned away, refastening the bolts that hold the manifold in place and then fiddling with the wiring he’d detached earlier, just in case. This kind of work is almost automatic and gives his hands something to do while he tries to smooth out the hot, shivery feeling that began simmering inside of him when Chanyeol first spoke from behind him.  
  
He doesn’t usually have to do this. Usually, Kyungsoo has everything (very tightly) under control.  
  
“How’d you know where I’d be?” Kyungsoo asks, voice finally even in his throat and the engine back in order enough for him to close the hood. He can’t wait until it’s time to replace the tacky orange paint job that the car had come with something classier, like a classic, glossy black.  
  
“I stopped by your house and your mom said you were here.” Looking thoughtful, Chanyeol shifts to lean against the car, right near the passenger door so he has a full view of Kyungsoo’s face. “Your mom, she’s really — “  
  
“Don’t say hot,” Kyungsoo cuts in. He’s had enough people tell him that to last a lifetime and he thinks if has to listen to Chanyeol say it, he'll end up trying to brain him with a wrench.  
  
“I was going to say nice,” Chanyeol says, but the quirk of his smile makes Kyungsoo think otherwise.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
For a seemingly open book, Chanyeol can be awfully hard to read, even for his best friend.  
  
“Besides, MILF’s aren’t really my type.”  
  
“Chanyeol, I swear to _god_ — “  
  
“Kidding!” Chanyeol raises his hands up like he’s just been caught trying to rob a bank. “Just kidding.”  
  
“So,” Kyungsoo says, trying to figure out how to word this so he doesn’t sound like an asshole, because it’s good to see Chanyeol, but he also has no idea why the hell Chanyeol is here. “What’s up? It’s too early for me to head back to Camp.”  
  
“Chiron…“ Chanyeol licks his lips, eyes alight with excitement, and Kyungsoo thinks Chanyeol’s probably been wanting to tell him about whatever this is since the moment he found out. “Chiron gave me a quest.” Kyungsoo stills for a moment from fiddling with the tool still in his hands. A quest is a big deal, but more than that, a quest is usually code for _something dangerous_. Chanyeol can probably see the look on his face and explains, “He says there’s a giant serpent, a python, that needs looking into at Yellowstone National Park.”  
  
“A python.” The only thing that comes to mind is the giant snake from Harry Potter, but Kyungsoo’s pretty sure this must be something more than an escaped zoo animal for Chiron to take an interest. You don’t send a demigod to do a mortal’s job, after all.  
  
“Yeah, apparently it’s been, um, eating tourists.” There’s a smirk, Kyungsoo can tell, hiding just on the edge of Chanyeol’s lips, and it’s making him smile too, because Chanyeol must be thinking the same thing about Harry Potter. Plus, Chanyeol’s smile has always been contagious.  
  
“‘Soo?” Jongin’s head peeks around the side door to the garage. “Ready to go? The movie’s supposed to start at — “ He stops dead at the sight of Chanyeol leaning against the body of the Charger, narrowing his eyes. “What are _you_ doing here?”  
  
Jongin never really took to Chanyeol like Kyungsoo had when they’d first arrived at Camp Half-Blood— he’s always had a hard time making friends, and Chanyeol’s brand of teasing sometimes comes on a little too strong for Jongin to believe it’s genuine — and three years of Chanyeol’s antics have done little to soften him.  
  
“Trying to kidnap Kyungsoo, obviously,” Chanyeol says. He’s smiling, but his mouth is tight at the corners, like it’s being hitched up. Chanyeol doesn’t do well with being disliked, but everything he tries with Jongin only seems to make it worse. It’s enough to wear anyone down a little. “He’s putting up quite a fight. Soon I might have to resort to brute force.” Chanyeol relaxes further back against the side of the car, bringing his hands up to rest behind his head, as if to make a point.  
  
Jongin’s frown deepens into a scowl as he steps fully into the garage, letting the door close behind him  
  
“As if you could,” Kyungsoo says, tossing his wrench into the toolbox near his elbow, the clang echoing through the garage and making both Jongin and Chanyeol jump and break their staring match. “It’s Camp business. Chiron’s sent him on a quest.”  
  
“A quest? Where to?”  
  
“That’s classified,” Chanyeol says smugly at the same time Kyungsoo says “Yellowstone”, and Jongin looks at them both funny.  
  
“You mean like, the national park?”  
  
Chanyeol heaves a big sigh, lowering his arms to cross them over his chest, but Kyungsoo ignores him. “Yes,” he tells Jongin, and wipes his greasy hands on his coveralls. “I should probably go get my stuff ready so we can leave ASAP.”  
  
“What?” Jongin’s scowl slips right off his face in alarm. “You’re going with _him_?”  
  
Jongin’s incredulity makes Chanyeol’s eyes soften up suddenly, all hurt like a kicked puppy.  
  
“Chiron said I could choose my own companions,” he says, “and I choose Kyungsoo.”  
  
“‘Soo can’t go,” Jongin says stubbornly. “He’s got — “  
  
“It’s fine,” Kyungsoo interrupts. “I’m glad he asked me. I _want_ to go.”  
  
Jongin’s jaw tightens. “I’m going too, then.”  
  
“What?” Chanyeol gapes at him, lips wet and eyes wide.  
  
“I said, I’m coming with you,” Jongin snaps, obviously warming to the idea.  
  
“You can’t just invite yourself along on _my_ quest! It’s not a birthday party or something.” Chanyeol’s guard is back up again, kicked-puppy look gone and his hackles raised instead.  
  
“I’m going along to make sure you don’t pull something ridiculous and get Kyungsoo killed.” That sobers Chanyeol up some, because it’s not an idle threat. He’s been at Camp Half-Blood, which is usually just a summer camp for demigods around the country, longer than either of them, and Kyungsoo knows he’s lost friends, has had to burn a funeral shroud for someone before. Jongin doesn’t mean for it to be a low blow, but it is.  
  
“Fine, but the minute you start slowing us down, I’m Iris messaging Chiron.” Chanyeol’s petulant tone sounds almost bizarre with his low voice.  
  
“How are we getting there?”  
  
Chanyeol runs his fingers along the edge of the Charger’s mirror and Kyungsoo follows the movement. He doesn’t want to have to clean off any fingerprints later. “I thought it’d be fastest if we flew?”  
  
“Sure,” Kyungsoo says, “we can book flights at my house.”  
  
Nodding but still frowning, Chanyeol picks up his pack and brushes past Jongin, hitting shoulders to him on his way to wait outside.  
  
“I’m not going to be the slow one,” Jongin mutters, but Chanyeol’s already out of earshot. Kyungsoo gives Jongin a Look. “What?”  
  
He shakes his head. “We’ll meet at my place in twenty minutes. Go get your things.”  
  
Jongin pouts, but then there’s the little _poof_ that signals his disappearance. Jongin can’t teleport far, so it’s probably just to the alleyway next door so he doesn’t have to pass Chanyeol on his way out, and Kyungsoo finally lets his shoulders sag.  
  
Honestly, he’s glad Jongin’s coming along. The idea of being alone with Chanyeol for an extended period of time is… complicated.  
  
Then Kyungsoo thinks of how Chanyeol had looked, relaxed and smiling as he peered down into the engine of Kyungsoo’s precious baby, and his gut shivers again, just on the edge of nausea.  
  
He smothers the feeling, trying to cut of its air supply for good, and goes to find some soap to wash the oil off his hands.

 

∆

  


The first time Kyungsoo sees Chanyeol is when he is fourteen, during the summer right before he’s meant to start high school. He and Jongin have just come to Camp Half-Blood after a satyr (a man who has the hind legs and hooves of a _goat_ ) named Basil had discovered two demigods like them living in the same neighborhood.  
  
“What are the odds of that?” Basil had bleated, half proud of himself and half anxious, because two demigods would attract twice the amount of trouble in such close proximity during their journey. And it _was_ kind of crazy, because Kyungsoo and Jongin had only known each other in passing before this, but after their journey to camp, which was made more than a little harrowing by a rogue hellhound or two, thirteen-year-old Jongin had, for lack of a better word, kind of latched on.  
  
A demigod, as Kyungsoo and Jongin come to understand, is a person born from one human parent and one parent that is among the Greek gods and goddesses. Because apparently those still exist.  
  
On their way to Camp Half-Blood, Basil had explained that the gods have always been present at the height of western civilization, traveling all over the western hemisphere through the centuries. Now, all of Ancient Greek mythology is spread from coast to coast of the United States, with the entrance to the Underworld in L.A., and Mount Olympus rising above the Empire State Building. (Kyungsoo didn’t _really_ believe it until he and his mother traveled up to New York City for Spring Break during his sophomore year of high school and Kyungsoo had taken in the skyline, realizing that there was a cloudy peak piercing the clouds above the Empire State Building, the shapes of some of the buildings visible to Kyungsoo’s eyes as they flashed with real, metallic gold.)  
  
There are quite a lot of demigods around, proof that old habits die hard and that the gods (as Lu Han once said) “have a hard time keeping it in their pants, if you know what I mean”, and so Camp Half-Blood was set up to help protect the demigods during the summers they have off from school, and to help train them into becoming heroes.  
  
The tour Kyungsoo gets when he and Jongin first arrive at Camp Half-Blood is given by Kris, one of the older boys from the Athena cabin. Jongin, who’s a little standoffish by nature, gets taken around by the friendlier-looking head of Hermes cabin, the cabin they’re staying in with the rest of the god’s children and the other unclaimed demigods  
  
“Hermes, my dad, is the patron god of travelers,” Lu Han explains, helping them set out places to sleep where there’s space on the crowded floor, “so we welcome everyone we can.”  
  
Then he ruffles Jongin’s hair, asking him if he’s hungry, and Jongin almost smiles, glancing up at Lu Han’s mischievous smile and nodding. Kyungsoo is glad when Jongin finally lets the hem of Kyungsoo’s shirt free so he can follow Lu Han, if only because he knows how difficult Jongin finds it to meet new people.  
  
Between the circle of cabins and the beach is where they all eat dinner (he and Jongin will sit at the designated Hermes table unless they’re claimed — marked by their parent with their personal symbol as a way of showing whose child they are, Kris explains), and then right across a small creek is the climbing wall. It’s huge, taller than any of the ones Kyungsoo’s seen at gyms around home, more like the side of a cliff than a wall.  
  
Kris smiles up at it almost fondly. “Chiron will be putting you through your paces on this before you know it.”  
  
“Paces?” While he wasn’t completely hopeless, Kyungsoo had always been better in shop class than gym.  
  
“Sure. Fire, earthquakes, you name it, the climbing wall’s got it,” Kris says like it’s simultaneously the most fun and most normal thing in the world for a rock climbing wall to try and kill you while you climb it.  
  
“That’s… intense.”  
  
Kris just laughs, but the wall is innocently towering over them both like the sheer edge of a volcano, and Kyungsoo eyes it suspiciously.  
  
The amphitheater is next, and Kyungsoo thinks it looks a bit like a miniature version of one of those outdoor stadiums where they hold concerts.  
  
“I thought this place was for training?” he says, looking around curiously, “not like, singing and stuff.”  
  
“Theater was very important to the Ancient Greeks,” Kris sniffs, and Kyungsoo wonders if he fancies himself an actor and has to stop himself from snorting at the idea. “But the training fields are over in the arena.”  
  
Kyungsoo looks where he’s pointing, back across the creek, and can make out a miniature version of every reproduction of the coliseum Kyungsoo’s seen in gladiator movies.  
  
He must make a face as he remembers one of the bloodiest scenes in Gladiator, because Kris reassures him, “Don’t worry, we won’t be asking you to fight to the death.” Kyungsoo heaves a mostly fake sigh of relief, almost missing the quirk of Kris’ thick eyebrows. “ _Yet._ ”  
  
Kris is already ten feet away when Kyungsoo realizes what he’s said. “Wait, _what?_ ”  
  
Kris introduces Kyungsoo to several other children of Athena (“half-siblings,” he says, ruffling the long blonde hair of one of the girls, and she gives him a look that could probably melt plastic) in the arts and crafts area just around the edge of the lake. They’re all tall and grey-eyed, just like Kris himself, and seemingly absorbed in weaving something really intricate and possibly the size of a small circus tent.  
  
“What — “  
  
“Don’t ask,” Kris says hurriedly, hustling him away. “It’s for the next game of capture the flag. Top secret. Now, over there, with the silk flowers, are some children of Aphrodite and a few of the wood nymphs.”  
  
Kyungsoo eyes the volleyball courts as they pass them on the way to the Big House, where Chiron and some of the other camp staff live. “Do those go on fire too?”  
  
Kris dismisses the idea with a flap of his huge hands. “Nah, those aren’t for training. Chiron just really likes to play.”  
  
Chiron, who had been waiting to welcome Kyungsoo and Jongin to the camp when Basil had brought them past the pine tree and over the property line, was a centaur and had been training heroes for oh, about a couple thousand years or so.  
  
“Right,” Kyungsoo says, mostly to himself so he can hear how ridiculous it sounds out loud, “Chiron the centaur likes playing volleyball.”  
  
The Big House, like any old farm house, has a neat coat of white paint on the trim and a large porch that overlooks the strawberry fields that help fund the camp, the stables (that hold _winged horses_ ) on the other side of the creek and the forest beyond.  
  
“In here,” Kris says, ducking into a large stone building, “along with all of the extra weapons in the camp, is the forge. You’ll mostly find the children of Hephaestus here.”  
  
There are racks and racks of swords shining down at them from the walls, rows of javelins and spears, and too many arrows to count, their different colored fletching bright against the stone walls. The building is warmer than outside, and Kyungsoo looks at the intricate designs on the shields lying on the shelves. One of them has a giant metal snake running around the edge with its head facing off with the figure of a young man armed with nothing more than a bow and arrow. The metalwork is more detailed than anything Kyungsoo has ever seen. He leans in to get a better look, and thinks he can almost see the man’s eyelashes.  
  
“Hephaestus?” he asks, distracted. The metal is cool and smooth under his fingertip. It’s a nice feeling.  
  
“God of blacksmiths,” a muscular guy who is almost as tall as Kris says, slapping Kris on the shoulder as he passes on the way to the door at the end of the room. “He’s also my dad. Come on, bring the new kid in to see the forge.”  
  
The heat when the door opens is like when Kyungsoo would open a hot oven to put in a pizza, hot, baking heat that ruffles his hair, and inside the forge is filled with the sounds of hammering metal and the _whoosh!_ of the large bellows in the corner, fanning the flames of the fire.  
  
He sees a boy, huge biceps bulging as he hammers at the edge of a sword and another fiddling with some metal rivets on what looks like the chest piece of a leather set of armor. The din kind of reminds Kyungsoo of the garage he likes to go to in his neighborhood back in Maryland, where the mechanics had taken a shine to him, teaching him and letting him fiddle with the cars as long as he swept up and took out the trash at the end of the day.  
  
“That’s Taecyeon, head of Hephaestus cabin,” Kris tells him, pointing at the boy that had shown them in and squinting at the heat. “The rest of the guys are his half-brothers. Junho, Chansung, Nichkhun — they do all the metalwork in the Camp. Got kind of a knack for it, you know.” He quirks his mouth a little wryly, but Kyungsoo can’t understand what that expression might mean in this context.  
  
He looks back around the forge curiously and sees in the midst of all the activity of the forge, there’s a boy standing perfectly still next to the open side of the fire.  
  
“Another son of Hephaestus?” Kyungsoo asks, watching in awe as the boy holds his hand above the flames of the forge, pulling a lick of fire up until breaks away from the hearth and rests in the palm of his hand.  
  
“No,” Kris says, following Kyungsoo’s eyes and smiling almost fondly. “Well, maybe. Chanyeol still sleeps in the Hermes cabin, but he’s always… gotten along well with fire, so who knows.”  
  
Chanyeol is tall like most of the rest of the boys scattered around the forge, but where they’re bulky and heavily muscled, he’s slim, skinny wrists and bowlegged thighs.  
  
Kris is talking about something else now, probably something to do with what kind of work might be expected of him as a new camper in the forge and other places while they try to gauge his strengths are, but Kyungsoo’s still distracted by Chanyeol.  
  
He’s smiling down at the palmful of flames, flickering light catching the white of his teeth as his bleached hair falls into his eyes, and it should seem reckless, this boy playing with fire with his bare hands, but it doesn’t. Chanyeol looks calm, using a finger of his free hand to make the tip of the flame sway from side to side, like a snake before a charmer, and Kyungsoo feels a little mesmerized by it.  
  
Chanyeol must feel Kyungsoo staring and looks up, catching his eyes. He’s smirking, extinguishing the fire by making a fist around it, and Kyungsoo only breaks eye contact when Kris lays a hand on his shoulder.  
  
“We should go look at the sparring fields in the Arena before it gets dark,” he says and Kyungsoo nods, trailing after him back outside. He takes a quick glance over his shoulder and sees Chanyeol coaxing another lick of fire into his hand.

  
 

∆

 

  
By the time they book their last-minute tickets (Chanyeol footing the bill with the shiny silver credit card paid for by his mother) and get on the MARC train heading up to the Baltimore airport, it’s the middle of the afternoon, luckily still before rush hour, and Kyungsoo slumps into his dark blue seat with a sigh.  
  
It’s not that he’s not excited. This is his first quest, the first quest for all three of them, and the opportunity isn’t one that Kyungsoo would be likely to have otherwise. Across the aisle, Chanyeol looks cheerful, fiddling with his hair like he always does when he’s got too much energy, and the smile he shows Kyungsoo when he sees Kyungsoo looking at him is a special one, the corners of his eyes crinkling and his cheeks dimpling, but it’s a mixed bag.  
  
In it, there’s happiness, and excitement, but then, hidden along the edges of his mouth, is anxiety and a yearning for something, Kyungsoo’s not sure what, in the way his brows pull together. There’s something too private about it, a lump rising in Kyungsoo’s throat to choke him.  
  
He looks away, eyes catching sight of something at the station they’ve just pulled into, the last stop before the airport. There aren’t many people there, which makes sense because of the time of day, but behind the clear plastic barriers, Kyungsoo could swear he’d just seen… a scaled tail?  
  
“’Soo,” Jongin says from next to him. “Did you just see — “  
  
“It’s probably nothing,” Kyungsoo interrupts, trying to convince himself more than anything else. It would kind of suck to get into trouble before they’d even left the state of Maryland.  
  
The words are barely out of his mouth, though, when the doors open and Kyungsoo hears a shout and then the echo of a monster’s roar.  
  
Chanyeol looks at him, almost pleading, eyes shining with curiosity, and Kyungsoo sighs. “Fine. Let’s go check it out.”

 

∆

 

  
Kyungsoo only knows about cockatrices in theory, dragons with the head of a rooster, but they’re infinitely more awful in person.  
  
The one lurking behind the Odenton MARC station is huge, big, glassy bird’s eyes rolling around in his head with some kind of madness while its long snake-like tail whips around behind it, scales clicking noisily.  
  
The monster is large enough that Kyungsoo doesn’t notice what’s making it so agitated until Jongin lets out a yell. The boy the cockatrice is pecking at is young, probably Jongin’s age, and stringy, long limbs making him trip over himself as he tries to get out of the way of the cockatrice’s beak.  
  
He scrambles back, the cockatrice shrieking and lashing out with its tail. It hits the barrier separating them from the station platform, making the plastic shudder, and the tail’s pointed tip whizzes past a little too close to where Kyungsoo, Jongin and Chanyeol are standing for comfort.  
  
Kyungsoo can hear the air moving to make way for the huge tail, the click and glitter of the green scales, and even the flutter of the red feathers that start midway up the monster’s neck. Its beak is sharp and black, and getting closer to impaling the boy with every peck. It scrapes the ground with its sharp claws, gouging deep farrows into the cement.  
  
The cockatrice lets out another scream, one that raises the hair on the back of Kyungsoo’s neck, and he can’t help himself from choking out “Chanyeol!” when he sees Chanyeol suddenly move forward, closer to the monster.  
  
“Aim for the throat!” Jongin yells, and Kyungsoo can’t quite figure out what he means until he sees the bow and arrow in Chanyeol’s hands. Running forward, Jongin draws the monster’s attention to keep him from punching a hole in the boy’s thigh, screaming and waving his arms, and Chanyeol nocks an arrow, pauses for a breath to take aim, and then shoots.  
  
The arrow hits the cockatrice right below the beak, disappearing into the sea of feathers, and for a second, Kyungsoo thinks it didn’t work. But then, seconds later, it lets out an earsplitting wail, throwing its head back in agony — Kyungsoo sees both Jongin and the boy shudder, covering their ears — and explodes into a cloud of dust.  
  
Monsters like the cockatrice don’t die. Instead, they reform in Tartarus, the deepest, darkest part of the Underworld, over time, maybe months or years, before coming back again to wreak havoc on the world.  
  
Once the dust has cleared, Kyungsoo sucks in a breath of oxygen. He watches Chanyeol calmly collapse his bow and quiver again so he can slip them back into his backpack, like he didn’t just slay an eight-foot monster with a single shot.  
  
Jongin helps the boy up. He brushes the dust off his black jeans and straightens his shirt before flicking his dark hair out of his forehead and looking around at them all.  
  
“It’s dead?” the boy asks finally, looking around as the remnants of the monster’s dust get swept away by a little breeze. He’s got sort of sleepy-looking eyes and a pink mouth that’s set in a flat line, like an unimpressed high schooler.  
  
“Not exactly,” Chanyeol says, “but it won’t be back again for a long time, so don’t worry.”  
  
The boy looks almost amused, which is a good sign, because, even though the probability of a monster attacking a mortal is slim, there’s always the possibility of hysteria. “Usually the worst thing that happens in Baltimore during the day is people cosplaying Hairspray,” he says, and Jongin laughs, a little choked, like he’s surprised.  
  
Chanyeol laughs too, mouth going wide as the sound pours out, always just a little too much. In the aftermath of all the excitement, Kyungsoo’s insides are beginning to feel like they’re made of jelly.  
  
Kyungsoo wonders curiously what the passing mortals must have seen them battling through the plastic barrier and the Mist that shrouds their eyes, keeping them from noticing anything too unusual.  
  
Jongin, obviously thinking the same thing, eyes the boy suspiciously. “What did you see?”  
  
“…I saw a small dragon with a chicken head.”  
  
Kyungsoo nods. “That would be the cockatrice then.”  
  
“Okay, so, we should probably give you the short version, since we’re in a hurry,” Chanyeol says. “Demigods — “  
  
The boy rolls his eyes so far back into his head that Kyungsoo worries they might get stuck, and interrupts, “Yeah, I’ve already gotten that speech.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“A satyr found me about a year ago and told me I’m a demigod and stuff.” He shrugs. “Same thing with you guys, right?”  
  
“Why haven’t we seen you at Camp Half-Blood then?” Kyungsoo asks.  
  
“Oh, the satyr said that my mother is a very minor goddess and if I didn’t want to go, that was okay because they didn’t really have space for me anyway.”  
  
The line of the boy’s mouth gets a little bit harder and there’s definitely more to that story, Kyungsoo can tell, but he doesn’t think it’ll do much good to try and force it out.  
  
In his experience anyway, satyrs have never really been known for their tact, which probably didn’t help the situation. (It probably has something to do with all the time they traditionally were supposed to spend with Dionysus, who has a reputation of being sarcastically unpleasant to everyone.)  
  
Jongin asks, frowning, “And you didn’t want to go?”  
  
“I’d rather stay with my dad. My mother’s Nemertes — “  
  
“One of the Nereids? Like Achilles’ mother was?” Chanyeol’s always had a better grasp of Ancient Greek history than Kyungsoo (Kyungsoo blames Chanyeol’s year-round lessons with Chiron). “What, so you’re like, Achilles’ cousin?”  
  
The boy rolls his eyes again. “I mean, if you look at it that way, technically we’re all cousins, aren’t we? Or related at least — “  
  
He thinks he sees Chanyeol cringe out of the corner of his eye and Kyungsoo suddenly feels sick to his stomach, almost missing when Jongin gags and says, “It only works like that if you have the same parent. I was kidding!”  
  
“Whatever,” the boy says, looking sullen as Jongin mutters “ _related to Chanyeol, gross_ ” under his breath, looking a little green. “You guys always say that when you find out anyway. But that’s ‘cause you forget that Achilles’ father was a demigod, too.” He shrugs with one shoulder, like he’s trying hard to look casual, but the line of his mouth is stiff, like this might really bother him. “People expect me to be a hero like him, but I don’t really care.”  
  
“So, he was like,” Chanyeol frowns, like he’s thinking hard, “a three-fourths-god?”  
  
The boy looks at Chanyeol as though he’s Very Strange, and turns to speak to Kyungsoo instead. “My father’s in solar energy research and saving the planet and stuff, which is why my mother liked him, I guess, even if he works for the NSA now. I keep telling him he should move to wind power, but he says he likes the bright things. I came down here to have lunch with him.” The boy’s smile is almost fond, and Kyungsoo can’t quite figure out why he should care whether his dad switched to wind power or not, but he decides it’s probably none of their business.  
  
“You should come back with us to Camp Half-Blood,” Jongin tells him, seemingly over his bought of disgust. “You could be in the Hermes cabin with me. There’s always space in there.” He slings an arm over the boy’s shoulders and the boy stills as though he’s trying to decide whether to allow it. Jongin smiles winningly at him, all white teeth, full lips, and crinkling eyes, and Kyungsoo sees the boy relax, just a little. “You could bunk next to me!”  
  
It kind of takes Kyungsoo by surprise, because while Jongin has gotten less shy around strangers over the past few years, he’s never been this open with someone he doesn’t know.  
  
“What’s your name?” Kyungsoo asks.  
  
“Sehun,” the boy says, looking sour. “Where are you guys even going?”  
  
Chanyeol puffs his chest out a little. “We’re on a quest.”  
  
“A _quest?_ ” Sehun repeats, like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.  
  
“Yes!” Chanyeol frowns again, eyes wide. “A very important quest! People’s lives are at stake!”  
  
“Chanyeol’s supposed to go kill a serpent or something,” Jongin tells Sehun in a bored voice. “I just came to make sure nothing happens to Kyungsoo.”  
  
“A serpent that’s been _eating tourists_ ,” Chanyeol interjects. “And nothing’s going to happen to Kyungsoo! I can keep him safe!”  
  
“I can take care of myself, thanks,” Kyungsoo says dryly. “But you could come with us if you wanted to, Sehun.”  
  
Sehun almost looks surprised before he covers it by pulling a face. “Why would I want to come with you?”  
  
“It’ll be fun!” Jongin says. “Take a week or two off school, travel cross-country, kill some monsters and come home again. Chanyeol’s rich, he’ll pay for your flight and everything!”  
  
Chanyeol makes an expression like he wishes Jongin would go lick the Odenton Station floor before he stops himself, glancing first and Kyungsoo and then nodding. “We demigods should stick together.”  
  
Sehun doesn’t look convinced.  
  
“Well, I mean,” Jongin says slowly, “if you’re too _scared_ to come… “  
  
“I never said that,” Sehun snaps. “I’m not a hero, and I don’t want to be. I don’t need to go and do these things.”  
  
Kyungsoo’s surprised when Chanyeol nods, because he and Jongin don’t often agree. “I get it. Fighting monsters and magical creatures and stuff is enough to scare anyone.”  
  
“I’m _not_ scared,” Sehun insists, pink starting to show across his cheekbones.  
  
“No, no, it’s fine” Kyungsoo says, getting into the act the other two are putting on. “Hero work isn’t for everyone. It scares a lot of people. That doesn’t make you a coward or anything.”  
  
“ _I said I’m not scared!_ ” Sehun’s voice echoes past the plastic barriers and around the station, making people stare.  
  
Jongin grins, convinced his strategy has worked. “So that means you’re coming with us then?”  
  
“I — “ Sehun cuts off, like he’s actually thinking about it. There’s something almost sad about Sehun’s face. Not like he’s about to start crying or anything, just some kind of veil of unhappiness that seems to have settled over each of the shadows cast on his face.  
  
Sehun turns his head, nose and cheeks grabbing the light through the plastic overhead, and Kyungsoo realizes he’s wrong. More than anything else, Sehun looks lonely, and Kyungsoo kind of wants him to come with them so he can spend some time with people more like himself.  
  
He tries to put something like this in his eyes, which he’s been told are like huge bay windows to his soul, and thinks he sees Sehun waver, mouth softening from its hard line.  
  
“So what kind of quest is this anyway? You said something about a serpent?” he asks finally, and Chanyeol cheers, grinning widely and throwing his arm about Kyungsoo’s neck. Even Jongin is smiling wide enough to show his teeth.  
  
Somehow, when they walk back onto the platform to board the train again as four instead of three, Kyungsoo feels like they’re finally starting out on the right foot.  
  
“Aw crap,” Chanyeol says, when they’re met with empty train tracks, his voice full of a frown. “We missed our train.”

 

∆

 

 

“Sometimes I forget that it’s weird that we never had dads to play catch with when we were little.” Chanyeol tosses his baseball up in the air and catches it when it comes back down, just before it smacks him in the face. The setting summer sun shines on his then-blond curls, making his head look as though it’s on fire. “That’s probably why I didn’t make the team in middle school,” he muses, and Kyungsoo doesn’t think he sounds upset, but Chanyeol’s father has always been a touchy subject. Parents usually were for kids like them.  
  
“I thought you said a Chimera rampaged the field during your tryout,” Kyungsoo says, trying to change the subject. The sparring field is quiet now that practices are over for the day at Camp and the sun is slipping below the trees.  
  
“Yeah, it burned the whole school stadium down, somehow. Must have been Greek fire to burn aluminum and brick.” Chanyeol laughs, remembering. “Anyway, _that_ conversation with my principal was the last straw for my mom, so I decided to come here year-round.”  
  
He throws the ball up again and has to reach out far to catch it, balancing on one leg and grinning at Kyungsoo when he manages to grab the ball with the tips of his leather-mitted fingers.  
  
Kyungsoo scoffs. Hero reflexes — it’s not like they don’t all have them.  
  
Chanyeol mutters to himself, “Ugh, I can never find a glove that fits my hand just right,” before going on. “School’s better here, though. Chiron gives a good history lesson and starts in on calculus early,” he glances over at Kyungsoo, mouth quirked in the way that signals he’s about to make a joke, “but there’s no modern literature to speak of. I feel like I’m missing out.”  
  
When the ball comes down this time, Chanyeol has to bend back for it and loses his balance, flopping hard onto the grass with an _oof!_. The baseball plops into his mitt seconds later anyway and Chanyeol crows with triumph. His cheeks are flushed when he raises his head to look over to where Kyungsoo is sitting, picking at the grass with restless hands. He’d been designing all day and part of him is itching to get back to it, but he knows his brain works better when he gives it breaks like this.  
  
“I wish I could go to school with you,” Chanyeol says, and Kyungsoo imagines Chanyeol wearing his school uniform, the tails of his shirt untucked and tie lost before second period, girls swooning as he passed them in the hallways because new senior Chanyeol Park is “ _such_ a babe!”  
  
Kyungsoo is glad they don’t go to school together.  
  
Chanyeol is still looking at him, propped up using his free arm as he cradles his glove in his lap. Sometimes Chanyeol does this, just studies Kyungsoo’s face like he’s trying to memorize it, like he hasn’t seen Kyungsoo in years.  
  
“Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol starts, voice suddenly serious, and Kyungsoo swallows, “I — “  
  
“It’s time for dinner, you two,” Jinah, one of Kris’ half-sisters, calls from the edge of the sparring field, cutting Chanyeol off, and Kyungsoo scrambles to his feet, tripping over them in his haste.  
  
During dinner, Kyungsoo sits with his back to the Hermes table and tells himself the heat climbing up his spine is from the fire, and not from someone’s eyes.


	2. Part 2

The plane ride starts out fine. Kyungsoo has a seat in a different row than the other three and is fiddling with his airline-sized cup of soda and tiny napkin on the folding tray in front of him to keep from noticing the looks Chanyeol keeps sending him. Jongin and Sehun are seated in the row in front of Chanyeol, both already asleep with their mouths gaping as they lean against each other. Chanyeol is too big for the seats, knees bumping the back of the seat in front of him and elbows hanging into the aisle, and he keeps glancing over at Kyungsoo, lip pushed out and eyes rounded pitifully.  
  
Before they boarded, Chanyeol had tried to talk Jongin and Sehun into changing seats with him and Kyungsoo, so they could sit together, insisting that he was the tallest and should be allowed to sit in the exit row with more leg room, and then that Kyungsoo should sit with him because it was _his_ quest.  
  
Sehun had rolled his eyes again but had been too busy using a pay phone to call his father (“He’ll be fine,” Sehun had waved off their concerns, and offered excuses on Jongin’s part, “I can’t ask about his work, so he doesn’t ask about stuff like this.”)  
  
Kyungsoo had played deaf, staring hard out the window at the waiting plane and rubbing with the hammer key ring on his keychain between his fingers while Chanyeol and Jongin bickered, Jongin arguing back that he was only one growth-spurt away from being as tall as Chanyeol, and Sehun was just as lanky besides, until the boarding groups were called. Jongin had smirked when he and Sehun’s group was called first, and Chanyeol had slumped in his chair. “We’ll never get to sit together now,” he said, forlorn.  
  
“I’m fine sitting by myself,” Kyungsoo had said, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he stood up, still not looking at Chanyeol. This much distance, at least, Kyungsoo can make himself keep. “It’ll be quieter.”  
  
In the end though, the quiet of riding on a plane with an empty seat next to you, Kyungsoo finds, is lonely.  
  
The flight attendant, a tall, thin woman with bright red hair pulled into a knot at the back of her head, smiles at him as she hands him a small airline cup of ice water. Her too-long nails scrape Kyungsoo’s fingertips during the handover and Kyungsoo shifts in his seat, wishing that he’d taken the seat next to the window instead of the aisle. The woman’s name is Esther, Kyungsoo remembers vaguely from the safety information speech before they’d taken off, and her smile is all teeth, eyes a piercing, impossibly pale and blue in that way only redhead’s eyes can be.  
  
The plane dips and Kyungsoo’s stomach turns, causing him to clutch his armrest and drop his eyes from the flight attendants face. Chanyeol is looking at him again, three rows up and pitiful, until the drink cart is moved up, blocking him from view.  
  
The turbulence lasts until the drink cart is all the way down the aisle, seeming to roll up and down the sides of the plane and rocking it from side-to-side. Kyungsoo wonders if his uneasiness is coming from the fact that his father was thrown down off Mount Olympus when he was only a baby. That would be enough to make anyone’s stomach upset, even if it’s only hereditary.  
  
“ _Pssst_ , Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol hisses, pausing next to Kyungsoo’s seat on his way back from the bathroom. “There was um, a thing. In the toilet.”  
  
“Yes, Chanyeol,” Jongin whispers, eyes rolling as he turns around. He’s obviously just woken up, all the hair on the left side of his head sticking straight up and the seam from the shoulder of Sehun’s shirt has left a red line on Jongin’s cheek. “That’s what happens when you’re finally potty trained. Then you have to flush — ”  
  
Kyungsoo quiets Jongin with a look.  
  
“What kind of thing?” Sehun asks, head popping out from behind Jongin’s headrest. He looks kind of curious, which is more emotion that Kyungsoo’s seen from him since they met.  
  
Chanyeol shrugs. “Like a snake kind of thing? I don’t know, it was green and red and had eyes.”  
  
“Is there a problem?” Esther the flight attendant chirps, making them all jump. Her smile is wider now, the thin airline emblem pin on her collar glinting sharply. “The captain has illuminated the fasten seatbelt’s sign, so please take your seats.”  
  
Chanyeol hurries down the few rows to his seat, looking guilty. “Sorry.”  
  
“Actually,” Kyungsoo says, moving to stand up as Chanyeol sits down, “I need to use the bathroo — “  
  
Esther pushes him down with a hand on his shoulder, fingernails digging in. “I don’t think so.”  
  
“Ow!” Her nails hurt much more than they ought to, almost like they’re made of metal. They’re probably going to leave four little bruises on the front of his shoulder and one from her thumb just above his shoulder blade.  
  
“I think you’d better fasten your seat belts,” Esther orders, her smile turning almost menacing as the plane begins to rattle again with no warning.  
  
“Um,” says Sehun, accidentally smacking Jongin in the head when he tries to shove Jongin’s bed-head out of his line of sight, “is the plane supposed to be doing that?”  
  
“I didn’t think there was supposed to be a storm,” the man across the aisle from Kyungsoo says gruffly as the tray he’s folded down in front of him loudly trembles.  
  
Esther still hasn’t let go of Kyungsoo’s shoulder. Her smile is definitely getting sharper now, teeth growing longer and getting less and less human by the second, her hair coming out of its tight bun, and Kyungsoo could kick himself, because how could they have been so stupid? Four demigods stuck together in such a small place were bound to attract the wrong kind of attention, and now there was no escape route.  
  
Chanyeol’s noticed the way Esther the flight attendant is changing into something more sinister too, gaze fixed on the grip she’s got on Kyungsoo’s shoulder, and Kyungsoo can see him go pale, white-lipped as he reaches for the backpack under the seat before him, where Kyungsoo knows he’s stashed his drumsticks.  
  
“People always say it’s safer to travel on a plane than on the ground,” Esther says, and her hair has almost completely fallen around her face and shoulders now, more brightly colored than it seemed before and twisting into thick, blood-red curls. “But perhaps you four should have taken the risk.”  
  
The rattling noise is getting louder and the other passengers gasp as Kyungsoo realizes that the sound isn’t the plane. Esther’s hair has become a mane of snakes, coiling around her neck and ears, tails rattling loudly and their mouths open, ready to bite.  
  
Kyungsoo recoils in horror, Esther’s nails (or _claws_ , rather, because her hands have gone hard and jagged, like metal talons) tearing at the flesh of his shoulder before pulling free. The sourness of bile is on the back of his tongue, along with the metallic taste of pain, and he almost can’t breathe through the sudden agony of having his flesh torn open.  
  
“You dare to turn away from my face?” Esther shrieks, her monstrous teeth barred and eyes murderous.  
  
The plane jolts hard, one of the bathroom doors flying open down the aisle and the other passengers begin to scream.  
  
“What _is_ that?” a woman sitting a few rows back yells, voice laced with terror, and there’s a loud hissing, like the sound a garden hose makes when it’s being dragged across concrete mixed with steam escaping from a kettle just before it sings. It’s an awful sound, one that cuts right down through the pain to Kyungsoo’s bones, and he barely moves in time to miss another swipe Esther takes at his head.  
  
Jongin shouts and a woman screams when an arrow whizzes through the air, cutting through the neck of one of the snakes on Esther’s head and embedding into the headrest of the empty seat on Kyungsoo’s right.  
  
Esther lets out a screech of rage, the greenish blood from the snake’s wound splattered across her cheeks, and turns to attack Chanyeol, who had shot the arrow, instead.  
  
Grasping inside his pocket for his key ring again, Kyungsoo tugs the hammer charm free, feeling the weight of it grow in his hand as it enlarges magically. It’s one of his father’s old hammers that’s kept for his children at Camp, and this one is Kyungsoo’s favorite sparring weapon because fits in his hand perfectly.  
  
Jongin’s already fiddled with his asthma bracelet to make it expand into his small, rectangular shield, pencil-turned-sword in hand by the time Kyungsoo’s managed to get out of his seat. From around where Chanyeol is standing in the middle of the aisle, facing off with the flight attendant, Kyungsoo can see him shove Sehun back down into his chair so he’s mostly blocked from view.  
  
Esther, talons scratching out at Chanyeol’s face, is shrieking, “I know you! I know your face!” There’s something unworldly about her voice, like it’s been mixed with the cawing of monstrous birds, the screeches of wounded animals, creatures in pain.  
  
Chanyeol nocks another arrow, hands steady even though his lips are still pale, but then the monster is too close for him to let it fly without risking a miss that might puncture the hull of the plane and he swears, eyes wide as she advances on him, single-minded and terrifying. The snakes she has for hair are wriggling and twisting against each other furiously, tails still rattling out a warning.  
  
Down the aisle, the din of the terrified passengers is broken by someone yelling, “Snake!” while another person exclaims histrionically, “The flight attendant’s gone crazy! She’s attacking those kids!” and Kyungsoo suddenly remembers the Mist. It probably looks like the flight attendant has gone berserk, screaming and clawing at their faces while he, Jongin and Chanyeol try to defend themselves.  
  
It doesn’t matter, though, because regardless of what the mortals _think_ they’re seeing, the monster that’s currently trying to tear one of Chanyeol’s arms off with her metal claws is real.  
  
“Your father will pay for what he did! For the curse he brought upon me and my sisters!” she’s screaming, crazed, as she lashes out at Chanyeol. For every slash of her claws, he takes a step down backwards the aisle, face pale but his eyes bright, like he’s taking in every detail of the battle and waiting for the right moment to strike.  
  
The snakes on the back of the monster’s head are watching Kyungsoo and they hiss, their version of a scream, when he aims his hammer at Esther — whose name Kyungsoo is beginning to realize is probably not actually Esther — catching her in the ribs with a hard blow that knocks the wind out of her.  
  
She stumbles away from Chanyeol, giving him space to throw a punch at her face. Out of the corner of his eye, Kyungsoo sees a flurry of movement back down the aisle, coming from the back end of the plane. There are several dark shapes and screams, but before Kyungsoo can even flinch, there’s a telltale _poof_ of teleportation and Jongin is there, blocking the shape with his shield and yelling over his shoulder for Sehun to stay put because he’s “not a fucking hero.”  
  
Jongin’s going to have to deal with whatever the shapes are ( _snakes_ is what Kyungsoo keeps hearing the mortal passengers screaming, but there’s no way to know if that’s just the Mist talking) on his own, because the flight attendant, clutching her side with one of her clawed hands, has got her fangs out, pretty face from before twisted out of shape into something truly hideous, so awful that Kyungsoo’s stomach churns. when she turns to screech at him, teeth barred.  
  
“Yes,” she says, almost hisses, tongue licking out between her teeth as she speaks. It’s forked now, like a lizard’s. “My true face is terrifying to you, isn’t it? All thanks to the _gods_ , who turned my sisters and I as ugly as we once were beautiful. I, who once sent a man to his knees with lust from just one look! My little sister could have turned you to stone, but I think,” she smiles again, bloodlust written all over her terrifying face, “I’ll just tear your throat out.”  
  
Her fangs are long, reaching to the bottom of her chin, yellowed with age and sharp enough to break skin. The fear is coiling tightly, deep in Kyungsoo’s stomach, mixing with the ache of his shoulder and making him nauseous.  
  
“Silly little demigod,” the Esther-the-monster snarls, eyes flashing as red as the snakes she has for hair, advancing on Kyungsoo. “You’d have lived a little longer if only you had _stayed home_.”  
  
She lunges, mouth open to tear out his throat, and Kyungsoo swings his hammer again, hitting the other side of her chest with a shattering thud. The scream she lets out makes his eardrums burn, but she’s still coming for him. Kyungsoo hits her again, feels the metal of his hammer break the bones in her shoulder, the crack vibrating up through the hammer into his arm, and then she’s on him.  
  
It doesn’t hurt too much, just a scratch of teeth, rather than a real bite. Kyungsoo can feel the snakes of Esther-the-monster’s hair hissing and rubbing against the skin of his face as they writhe in anger, making Kyungsoo shudder, bile climbing up his throat at the though of her terrifying face being so close to him. He’s sure they’re going strike, that he’s going to die at seventeen from some horrific venom from a snakebite, and then suddenly, she goes limp against him with one last wail. Eyes cracking open when the snakes drop away, lifeless, Kyungsoo catches sight of the arrow in her back, just below the left shoulder blade, seconds before she turns to dust.  
  
Once the dust clears, Kyungsoo locks eyes with Chanyeol, whose bow is still raised and his eyes wide with surprise.  
  
“Are you,” Chanyeol croaks, face still white as a sheet, “you okay?”  
  
There are little beads of blood dripping down from the scratches on his neck into the collar of his shirt and his left shoulder is in shreds, the wounds still stinging sharply, but nothing too serious. Kyungsoo nods. “Yeah. You?”  
  
“ _Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking_ ,” a voice cuts in over the loudspeaker, strained in the way terrified people always sound when they’re trying to be cheerful. “ _Due to some safety and security issues, we’re going to be making an emergency landing. Please follow crew member instructions and —_ “ The speaker cuts off in a burst of static.  
  
A loud crash up at the front of the plane has Chanyeol whipping his head around and both of them rushing down the aisle towards the noise.  
  
The other flight attendant, small and blonde, is on the floor of the galley in front of the first class cabin. Behind her, the door to the cockpit has been smashed in, metal crumpled like it’s been hit with a battering ram.  
  
Kyungsoo leans over to check the flight attendant’s pulse as Chanyeol leans around the edge of the cockpit door towards the sounds of fighting within. The woman’s heartbeat thrums under Kyungsoo’s fingers and he grasps her wrists, dragging her further into the little kitchen area to keep her out of the way. It hurts like hell to use his left arm, but Kyungsoo would never be able to forgive himself if something happened to her when he could have helped.  
  
“Holy _shit_!” Chanyeol dives away from the door as Jongin’s voice calls “look out!” and something huge and definitely not human bursts back into the cabin, nearly tearing the door off its metal hinges.  
  
There’s no doubt about it now: it’s a snake, with bright red and green scales and huge, glassy eyes that catch the fluorescent lighting above them. Its long body is as thick around as Kyungsoo’s waist, coiled over and over itself on the floor, and its forked tongue flicks out from between its fangs, as though tasting the air for his and Chanyeol’s scents.  
  
Kyungsoo wonders if it can taste the coppery scent of the blood that’s soaking the fabric covering his shoulder. The gashes from the monster’s claws ache, the skin pulling with every inhale, and he has to consciously stop himself from hissing on his inhales.  
  
Chanyeol nocks another arrow, the snake striking forward, attacking. Kyungsoo can only watch, his heart jumping all the way up into his mouth, stopping him from calling out Chanyeol’s name.  
  
His back slams into the side of the plane, gravity shifting and the plane rolling slightly. His shoulder screams, pain hissing through Kyungsoo’s teeth. Both Chanyeol and the serpent are thrown off-balance, missing each other. Chanyeol stumbles back into the aisle a little, arrow falling from his suddenly limp bowstring, and the snake, propelled forward by its own lunge, lands with a thud on the floor in front of Kyungsoo.  
  
He looks at it, into its eyes, glowing yellow, like huge Japanese lanterns, and time seems to stop. They’re the size of his hands, glittering with fury and the vertical pupils black, bottomless, and mesmerizing.  
  
The plane rights itself after a few seconds, shaking Kyungsoo out of his trance, and he can tell the snake is still trying to right itself, body twisted up into knots until it can’t move enough to get away.  
  
“Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol shouts. “Do it now!”  
  
Lifting up his hammer, Kyungsoo puts all his weight behind the downstroke. The effort makes even his left shoulder, the blood welling in the cuts, ache, and he feels the impact all the way up through his right shoulder as it hits the snakes head. The snake hisses wildly for a moment, before it dissolves into a cloud of glittering dust.  
  
“What the _hell_ is going on up here?”  
  
Judging by his heavily rumpled clothes, Sehun seems to have muscled his way all the way to the front of the plane, a broken tray table clutched in his hand.  
  
“I didn’t break this,” Sehun says defensively. “Someone else did. I’m holding it for them.”  
  
“Sure,” Kyungsoo says easily, deciding that it’s probably not important.  
  
There’s another crash from inside the cockpit, the sound of Jongin and several others, the pilots probably, yelling.  
  
Sehun’s knuckles tighten around the tray table and before Kyungsoo can say another word, he’s barreling into the cockpit.  
  
After a few loud thumps, Sehun yells shrilly, “ _SNAKES ON A PLANE?_ ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? HANGING OUT WITH YOU GUYS _SUCKS_!”  
  
“Sehun — “ Pain lances through Kyungsoo’s shoulder, like fire, and he stumbles as he tries to go in after Sehun. Chanyeol catches him, bow and arrow falling from his hands so he can hold Kyungsoo’s waist, and Kyungsoo blinks through the pain, dropping his forehead onto Chanyeol’s collarbone.  
  
The noises coming from the cockpit seem quieter now, dimmed by the sound of Chanyeol’s breathing and a ringing in Kyungsoo’s ears, along with the knowledge that he’s still alive. He killed a monster and he’s still alive. _They’re_ still alive.  
  
“Um?”  
  
Kyungsoo jerks his head up from Chanyeol’s shoulder. Jongin is staring at them both, shifting awkwardly on the balls of his feet. He’s got a split lip, a little trickle of blood already down his chin, and some bruises already blooming on his cheekbone.  
  
“So,” Jongin says, “the pilots are kind of unconscious.”  
  
“What?” Chanyeol whips around, hand twisting into Kyungsoo’s shirt. “What about the other… thing?”  
  
“Yeah, Sehun,” Jongin might almost be smiling, “kind of beat it into dust with a tray table. But um, we kind of need someone to land the plane.”  
  
Sehun calls from inside the cockpit. “I got it!”  
  
“No no no,” Jongin says, ducking back through the doorway. “This is a plane, Sehun. You don’t know how to fly a _plane_.”  
  
Tugging on his shirt, Chanyeol pulls Kyungsoo after him, into the cockpit just in time to see Sehun roll his eyes. “Of course I don’t know fly a plane.”  
  
Everything inside is coated with a thin layer of dust. Off to the left, the bodies of the pilot and co-pilot have been moved out of the way. The older-looking one, the pilot most likely, has a dark bruise on his temple, but his chest is rising and falling. The other man looks about the same, minus the bruising, and Kyungsoo lets out a tiny sigh of relief that neither of them was killed.  
  
“Why aren’t we…nose-diving?” Kyungsoo can see that Chanyeol is itching to play with all the dials on the plane’s dash, the way he always does with shiny things that can go fast. Kyungsoo wants to fiddle with them too, the inventor in him aching to take the plane apart and put it back together just to see how it ticks.  
  
“Autopilot,” Sehun says, pointing to a button on the dash, “but that won’t get us landed and we’re going to run out of fuel soon.” Then he points down at the ground, which is much closer than Kyungsoo would like. There’s a bunch of lights flashing up through the twilight, lines of them in different colors, running along the same path as some lighter patches of ground, which Kyungsoo assumes is probably the concrete of the runway. “There’s where we were going to land. We don’t have much time.”  
  
“Maybe one of the other passengers is a pilot?” Kyungsoo wonders, but Sehun waves him off. The radio is practically screaming with noise as the air traffic controllers try to contact the pilots, who are unfortunately unconscious on the cockpit floor.  
  
Sehun mutes the radio. “I said, I’ve got it.”  
  
Jongin’s put his shield and sword away, and he grabs Sehun by the arm with his free hands. “You said yourself: you’re not a hero. Don’t worry, we’ll find someone who can — “  
  
Ignoring him, Sehun calmly leans forward and pushes the autopilot button, turning it off. Immediately, the plane begins to rattle again, buffeting through the air, the joystick unstable. Reaching out, Sehun grasps into the air, as though holding it steady, and the plane levels out, dropping gracefully through the air instead.  
  
“What the — “ Jongin’s mouth is open, and Kyungsoo is sure his is as well. Sehun’s face is going a little red, knuckles tense and his jaw clenched.  
  
It’s almost, Kyungsoo thinks, watching the ground rush up from below them smoothly, like a regular airplane landing, almost…  
  
“Are you like, Magneto or something??”  
  
Jongin hits Chanyeol in the shoulder. “Of course he’s not, you idiot.” Then, he looks at Sehun again, suddenly unsure. “You’re not right?”  
  
Sweat is beginning to shine on Sehun’s forehead and neck and Kyungsoo can see the muscles and veins in his arms straining. “Little busy here,” he grinds out, and the plane begins to wobble again slightly, along with the shaking of Sehun’s hands. Kyungsoo can feel the vibrations in his injured shoulder, an ache that spreads outward, both down his arm and to his neck and chest.  
  
“Whoa,” Jongin says, throwing out his arms to steady himself. “What’s happening? Sehun, what’s wrong?”  
  
“Stop distracting him,” Chanyeol scolds, frowning at Jongin from across the cockpit.  
  
Jongin frowns right back. “You’re the one that’s yelling!”  
  
“I’m not yelling!”  
  
The plane trembles violently in the air, almost tilting dangerously to the right, and the veins in Sehun’s neck are so visible now Kyungsoo can watch his pulse. “ _Quiet!_ ”  
  
With a grunt, Sehun pulls the plane steady again, bringing the nose of it up as the tarmac begins whizzing by underneath them. It’s not a smooth landing, the wheels bouncing some before the front of the plane touches down, and then Sehun is moving, fists meeting resistance as he pulls them back towards his body, as though he’s pulling on the reigns of a galloping stallion in an attempt to slow him down.  
  
Somehow, though, it works, the plane slowing foot by foot until it grinds to a halt on the runway. Sehun drops his arms finally, all of the color gone from his face and sweat dripping from his forehead and neck. He looks exhausted.  
  
“That — “ Jongin and Chanyeol look as shocked as Kyungsoo feels and Jongin’s mouth is hanging so far open it looks like he’s unhinged it . “That was _insane_! Dude, you just landed a _plane_. Without even touching the joystick!”  
  
Sehun sags against the pilots seat, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, but Kyungsoo thinks he might be smiling a little.  
  
“It’s wind, right? Or air?” Sehun nods and Chanyeol smiles, giving him a pat on the back. “I guess I can see why you might want your dad to switch to working with wind power instead,”  
  
“And you said you weren’t a hero.” Kyungsoo smirks at Sehun as the younger boy ducks his head and reaches out to ruffle his hair a little. When he’s not being a brat, Sehun is actually kind of cute. “That wasn’t bad for a kid with no battle training.”  
  
“So, can you, like, fly?” Kyungsoo hears Jongin ask in that way he has where he sounds both shy and endearingly idiotic.  
  
“You think they’ll be okay?” Chanyeol asks, pointing to the two pilots, and Kyungsoo remembers the unconscious blonde flight attendant that he had moved to the galley earlier.  
  
He bends down, checking their pulses again with his good arm, and nods. “I’m sure they’ll have paramedics out here soon enough anyway.”  
  
Straightening back up, Kyungsoo tries to move his bloodied shoulder as little as possible as they make their way out of the cockpit. Chanyeol supports him with a grip on his right arm, giving him something to lean on while he walks.  
  
Back in the cabin, it’s total mayhem, even the normally blasé first class passengers up out of their seats in the chaos as several people are in hysterics, while others are fighting with each other, tearing apart the interior of the plane.  
  
“I’ll get our stuff,” Chanyeol says, handing Kyungsoo over to Jongin while the rest of them stare at the veritable riot taking place in front of them.  
  
“Yeah,” Sehun says, unable to tear his eyes away from an older woman as she repeatedly hits a man over the head with her purse as Chanyeol barrels into the crowd. “I’ll get the door.”  
  
Jongin looks at the solid surface of the cabin door dubiously.  
  
“Those doors are heavy, how’re you going to — “ turning towards the door, Sehun shoves his hands out on front himself, like he’s pushing someone away, and the thing goes flying out of place, landing with a thud on the runway about fifty yards away.  
  
Jongin deflates a little. “Oh.”  
  
Leaning to look out, Sehun says, “We should just be able to jump.” The sound of sirens starts filtering into the cabin and Sehun looks up, the blood leaving his face. “Yeah we should probably go. You know, or we could stay and wait to be questioned by the police about what happened.”  
  
“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says, “No. I’d rather not.”  
  
“I got it!” Chanyeol yells, emerging from the mini-riot victoriously with all their backpacks hanging on his arms, making him look like some kind of bizarre walking coat rack.  
  
Sehun’s already on the ground outside, calling back up to them, “Unless we want to be the center of a police manhunt, we’ve gotta get out of here!”  
  
Jongin hops down next, holding out a hand to help Kyungsoo, which he makes a face at but takes anyway to keep from jarring his injured shoulder too badly. Chanyeol tosses the backpacks down after him, most of them hitting Jongin in the face.  
  
“That could have really hurt me!” Jongin pouts, shouldering his bag and passing Sehun his own. Chanyeol snatches up Kyungsoo’s before he even gets a finger on it, sending a significant look towards the blood-soaked shoulder of Kyungsoo’s shirt.  
  
“Not really the time or place, Jongin,” Kyungsoo says, pressing his hand to the gashes as they start to run in the opposite direction of the sirens. A high fence topped with barbed wire surrounds the runway and Kyungsoo doesn’t know how they’re going to get out of this one. They’d probably make it out okay if they got taken in for police questioning, since everyone seemed to think it was the flight attendant who’d done the attacking, but that’s a situation he’d rather they avoided.  
  
“There!” Jongin points to a place where a few links of the chain have already broken. Hurrying towards it, Kyungsoo stumbles and nearly lands flat on his face, but Chanyeol catches him by the waist, holding him upright and pushing him forward.  
  
“Where’s your hammer, ‘Soo?” Jongin asks, already tugging at the open links and not having much success. “That should open this enough for us to get through.”  
  
He pulls the hammer keychain free again, handing it to Jongin once it’s reached its full size.  
  
“You’re stronger than you look, Kyungsoo. This thing is _heavy_.” He hefts it against the metal fence, the chain-link shuddering loudly when it strikes. Kyungsoo looks back towards the parked plane. Security doesn’t seem to have noticed them yet, too busy trying to find a way to hoist themselves inside the plane without a ladder, but they probably don’t have too long before someone catches sight of four teenage boys vandalizing a security fence.  
  
“Got it!” Jongin and Sehun hold open the gap in the fence wide enough for Kyungsoo to get through, Chanyeol pushing him along with a hand to the small of his back, before they follow.  
  
Kyungsoo hears the other three arguing about whether they should hammer the gap shut again when a wave of dizziness hits him, the adrenaline that had gotten him through the fighting and their sprint from the plane finally used up. His knees buckle, bodyweight falling on his uninjured arm as he catches himself before he hits the ground.  
  
A warm palm presses into the back of his neck and the next time Kyungsoo blinks, his ears start to ring and the green grass underneath his knees fades to black.

 

∆

 

Kyungsoo wakes lying on something soft. The dryness of his mouth is almost painful, peeling his tongue free and wincing when his throat scrapes as he swallows.

  
There’s a lamp shining in his eyes, the shade different than the one from Kyungsoo’s bedroom. He sits up quickly, suddenly wide-awake. The movement jars his injured shoulder and Kyungsoo hisses through his teeth.  
  
“Careful,” Chanyeol’s low voice says from beside him, pressing him back down into the mattress (a hotel bed, Kyungsoo puts the clues together, they’re staying at a hotel). Then he passes Kyungsoo a glass of water and some ambrosia, the food of the gods. Demigods are able to consume in small amounts to help them heal more quickly from their injuries, and Kyungsoo nibbles on the cube once his mouth is wet enough for him to swallow, fingering the edges of his bandages with his free hand. The rest of his torso his bare, goose bumps raising in the nighttime chill of the room.  
  
“Jongin helped clean you up,” Chanyeol says quietly, and Kyungsoo can see the shadows of two lumps in the next bed. “He and Sehun passed out a few hours ago.”  
  
Kyungsoo swallows another mouthful of ambrosia. Getting him from the field out behind the airport all the way to the hotel without having people ask strange questions probably wasn’t very fun. “Thanks.”  
  
The blankets underneath Kyungsoo rustle as Chanyeol shifts next to him, rubbing his head into his pillow and blinking over at Kyungsoo sleepily. ”It’s not like we could just leave you there or something. We had to toss your shirt, though.”  
  
“That’s okay,” Kyungsoo says. “I’m kind of cold, though.”  
  
Chanyeol shoves at the blanket with sleep-clumsy hands, helping push it down to where Kyungsoo can comfortably push his feet under, and then pulls it back up over Kyungsoo’s chest, almost as if he’s tucking Kyungsoo in. “The ambrosia should help you heal by morning, so get some sleep.”  
  
Kyungsoo is so tired that he doesn’t even register that he’s lifted his hand to brush Chanyeol’s hair away from his forehead until he’s already done it. Chanyeol sighs against him, relaxing into the touch as his eyes flutter shut.  
  
There’s still space between them on the bed, even though he can feel the heat of Chanyeol’s skin filling the air beneath the covers, and Kyungsoo knows he should move his hand away, he _should_.  
  
He will — just not for a few more seconds.  
  
His shoulder is throbbing in the way that means that it’s beginning to heal and Kyungsoo is tired, right down to his bones. Chanyeol’s hair is soft under his fingers, the little air from each of his exhales brushing Kyungsoo’s wrist.  
  
Kyungsoo lets his eyes slide shut. He’ll let himself have just a few more seconds of this. Just a few more…

 

∆

 

 

While Jongin and Kyungsoo live in the same neighborhood outside Washington, D.C., their houses within walking distance from each other, they don’t go to the same school. After that first summer at Camp Half-Blood, though, they start to hang out a couple times a week.  
  
Mostly it involves Jongin showing up at on his doorstep, shyly holding up a movie for them to watch. They’re usually crappy, plotless action films that Jongin loves and Kyungsoo finds entertaining for completely different reasons, but sometimes, when Jongin’s had a rough week at school, it’s an anime he wants to marathon, and Kyungsoo will make popcorn while Jongin curls up on his couch, stinking of adolescent misery.  
  
Some of Jongin’s rough weeks are caused by the fact that he’s a shy boy that goes to a public school, others by his general teen angst about discovering that he really is different from the other kids (a.k.a. a _demigod_ ), but most of them are because of Krystal Jung.  
  
“She’s the prettiest girl at Tacoma Park,” Jongin whines miserably, face smushed into the cushions of Kyungsoo’s couch. “She’s never ever _ever_ going to notice me.”  
  
St. Alban’s, the small private school Kyungsoo’s attended since first grade, is an all-boys school, so Jongin’s girl problems are unfamiliar territory.  
  
“Have you tried to talk to her?” he tries, and Jongin flails wildly smacking his head on the back of the couch.  
  
“I can’t just _talk_ to her!” he says shrilly. “Every time I look at her, my stomach feels all weird like it’s turning inside-out and flipping over. What if I throw up? What if she hates me???”  
  
Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to say, and shoves a handful of popcorn into Jongin’s mouth to stop him from talking about Krystal instead.  
  
It’s not like Kyungsoo’s classmates don’t talk about girls. He’s just started Form III and some of the other boys have gotten girlfriends that go to the local high schools, taking them on awkward movie dates that they brag about afterwards to the other boys in the locker room after gym class.  
  
Kyungsoo likes girls. He spent most of his first summer at Camp getting being coached through the basics of swordsmanship by Jia, one of the children of Ares and Chiron’s star pupil, and somehow managed to make friends with her too when their cabins teamed up for one of the Camp-wide games of capture the flag. Kris’ younger half-sister Jinah began their friendship by coming to him with the plans for a custom spear early in June and incidentally ended up becoming his favorite companion for rides on the winged horses. All the girls of the Demeter cabin have decided he’s adorable and like to corner he and Chanyeol when everyone gathers around the fire after dinner and get them to lead the campfire songs.  
  
The thing is, Kyungsoo likes girls, but he doesn’t think he really **_likes_** girls. Girls are his friends, his mentors, sometimes his opponents on the battlefield and sometimes the leaders of the teams he’s on. They can be fun, and tough, and silly, and totally genius, but Kyungsoo has never wanted what Jongin talks about wanting with Krystal with any of the girls he knows. He’s ever gotten that stomach-flipping feeling when one of them looked his way.  
  
Chanyeol is friends with a lot of girls, too, and on the evenings when Kyungsoo stays too late in the forge or the huge old bunker out in the forest to work on something, he’ll find Chanyeol kicking around a soccer ball on the sparring field with Jinri, a girl from Apollo cabin until it’s too dark to see. Chanyeol loves sports and enjoys trying to score on Jinri during their little scrimmages even though Jinri plays forward on the top ranked high school girl’s team in the nation.  
  
It’s amusing to watch Chanyeol go between ambling around the field the same way that he walks, limbs flailing a little bit like they’re too long for him to keep track of, and the loping, graceful run he breaks into when he’s trying to make a break for Jinri’s goal.  
  
Kyungsoo is watching from the edge of the field one evening when Chanyeol happens to actually make one of his shots. Chanyeol whoops, pumping his fist into the air before taking a victory lap and Kyungsoo laughs at the wide smile on his face.  
  
He can hear Jinri playfully goading him about the overall score of their game, hands on her hips, and Chanyeol changes course on his way around the field, heading straight towards her. The speed he’s running at doesn’t give her much time to get out of the way and Chanyeol runs smack into her, laughing madly. Kyungsoo sees them start to over-balance, Chanyeol wrapping his arm around Jinri’s shoulder and pulling her into his chest so he can cushion their fall to the ground.  
  
Jinri is calling Chanyeol all kinds of rude names, shoving at him and trying not to laugh as they try to get their legs untangled, and all of Kyungsoo’s amusement seems to die in his throat. His mouth is all dried up and his stomach is twisting, tying itself in knots as he watches them together.  
  
Kyungsoo knows she and Chanyeol are good friends, and he’s heard Jinri talk about a boyfriend from home, but that doesn’t stop the jealousy from aching in his stomach.  
  
Chanyeol, Kyungsoo realizes, might **_like_** like girls, and he can’t figure out why that seems to matter so much to him.

 

∆

 

“So…” Jongin’s standing at the window looking out of their hotel room at the view of the parking lot. “This is Iowa.”  
  
Kyungsoo is checking to make sure everything in his backpack made it through the disastrous flight, anxiety dissipating when he catches sight of the hand-stitched leather he’d been looking for. Zipping the bag shut again, he walks up behind Jongin, squinting into the grey light of the morning. Thanks to the ambrosia, his shoulder is almost completely healed, only a little stiff from how heavily he’d slept. “Huh. I always imagined potato fields instead of highways.”  
  
Looking over at the clock, Chanyeol says, “It’s almost eleven. We’ve got to check out soon and get going.”  
  
“Where are we going to go, though? It’s not like we can just rent a car.” The hotel room is a nicer one, the drapes long and heavy enough to block out daylight completely when closed and the furniture all made of the same dark, polished wood. Chanyeol must have footed the bill for this, too.  
  
“We’ll just catch a train or something,” Sehun says, still lounging in bed. “Where are we again?”  
  
“Iowa.” Sehun stares and Kyungsoo clarifies, “It’s in the middle.”  
  
“Okay, and where are we going?”  
  
“Wyoming.” Sehun stares some more and Kyungsoo sighs. “It’s one of the bigger ones to the left of the middle.”  
  
“That’s not that far, right? Middle to middle.”  
  
Chanyeol laughs. “You are _so_ from the east coast.”  
  
“It’s not my fault all the square states look the same!” Sehun says defensively, crossing his arms over his chest.  
  
Kyungsoo knows Chanyeol’s mother owns a huge house in Seattle, across Lake Washington in Medina, but he hasn’t been back there since he was twelve. Once, he’d gone to visit his sister for his birthday in L.A. and had come back with his shoulders hunched, face closed off and disappointed, and all Kyungsoo had been able to get out of him was that something had happened with his sister’s boyfriend, his sister’s boyfriend’s car, and an angry manticore.  
  
“Wyoming is like, eighteen hours away,” Kyungsoo says, remembering the research he’d done on his computer before they’d left Maryland the day before.  
  
Sehun slumps onto his back and rolls over, pressing his face into his pillow and groaning.  
  
“How are we even going to get there?” Jongin is playing with the packets of coffee on the desk by the far wall, the plastic crinkling while he mumbles to himself about how strange tiny coffee pots are.  
  
Chanyeol flops down onto the empty bed, bouncing a little on the mattress with his legs wriggling around like noodles in the air. “I have no idea.” He’s got his lips pushed out, pouting, and his eyebrows drawn tight as he thinks. “Doesn’t Baekhyun live in Iowa?”  
  
Jongin drops the plastic package of instant coffee on the desk, turning. “I think so?”  
  
“Baekhyun?” Sehun asks curiously, voice still muffled by pillow.  
  
“A friend from Camp,” Kyungsoo says, offhand. “Anyone got any _drachmas_?”  
  
The easiest way for demigods to communicate is Iris messaging, done by creating a rainbow (usually out of mist) and tossing a _drachma_ , Ancient Greek currency made of gold, into it as an offering to the goddess Iris to ask her to carry your message.  
  
Jongin shakes his head while Sehun just looks confused. Chanyeol is reaching for his backpack with a guilty look on his face.  
  
“You have a _cell phone_?” Jongin bursts out incredulously when Chanyeol pulls out a slim, expensive-looking phone from one of the inner pockets.  
  
For demigods, the way cell phones transmit signals through the air makes using them a bit like painting a big red target for every monster in the area on your forehead, so it’s usually better to just not use one at all.  
  
Chanyeol shifts on the bed, looking uncomfortable. “I usually keep it off, but my mom…” He trails off. The tips of his ears are red.  
  
Something strange is happening in Kyungsoo’s chest at the realization that Chanyeol had kept this phone a secret from him. “Do you have Baekhyun’s number? His house phone, I mean.”  
  
“Yeah.” Chanyeol holds down the power button to turn the phone on. “I’ll call and see if he can help us.”  
  
He scrolls through his contacts, looking for Baekhyun’s name, and doesn’t meet Kyungsoo’s eyes. Kyungsoo’s sure his name isn’t on that list, and even worse, he knows it’s probably better this way.  
  
It’s better if they’re both allowed to have secrets.

 

∆

 

“You guys are lucky. Iowa’s a big fucking state and I wouldn’t have driven more than an hour to come pick you idiots up.” Gunning the engine, Baekhyun zooms past a small sedan illegally on the right, yelling irritably, “We’re outside the city, the speed limit’s seventy, jackass!”  
  
There’s something almost comical about seeing Baekhyun drive such a huge pickup truck. Kyungsoo had stifled a laugh as he watched Baekhyun lever himself up into the driver’s seat using the metal step that runs below the doors and Chanyeol had teased him so much about having to pull the driver’s seat so far up so Baekhyun could reach the pedals that Baekhyun had threatened to make Chanyeol ride in the bed of the pickup on the way back to the house.  
  
Along the highway, Kyungsoo watches the fields pass, rows and rows of green flitting by, as far as the eye can see. In the distance, he can see the silver cone tops of storage silos, flashing in the sun. Suddenly, Kyungsoo realizes how very far from home they are.  
  
Baekhyun drums on the steering wheel as the truck purrs beneath them. “Dad said I could have some friends stay since we got all the planting done on time, but you’ll have to bunk up together and help with dinner.”  
  
“Sure,” Kyungsoo says. “No problem.” In the cab behind him, he can hear Chanyeol fidgeting, fingers tapping a rhythm out absently on the drumsticks he’s got in his lap. Like any demigod, Chanyeol’s always had a hard time sitting still and his restlessness is almost contagious, making Kyungsoo twist his hands together, trying his fingers in and out of knots.  
  
He nearly jumps out of his skin when Baekhyun slams on the trucks horn and begins swearing at the slow-moving SUV that’s just cut in front of them.  
  
“Who’s your God parent, or whatever you call it?” Sehun asks curiously, leaning around the driver’s seat to get a better look at Baekhyun, like he’ll be able to tell the answer by his face.  
  
“Aphrodite,” Baekhyun says absently, stomping on the gas to pass the SUV and making the engine growl again. “Fucking moron,” he mutters at the car with the air of someone who has totally despaired of humanity.  
  
Sehun looks utterly baffled by this answer and Kyungsoo presses his lips down on a smile. There’s never been any question that Baekhyun is beautiful like his mother, but he’s never really fit the rest of the part, flowers and pink frills, and all that.  
  
Kyungsoo probably gets that more than most other people.  
  
The rest of the drive is spent mostly in silence, except for Baekhyun’s occasional road rage, and they arrive at the farm during the hottest part of the afternoon a little before dinnertime.  
  
The house is big and white, with a porch that wraps around one corner, and black shutters on either side of each of the windows. There’s a large red barn on the other side of the dirt driveway, a few bales of hay stacked outside, and a white-fenced paddock with a mare and her colt inside, chestnut coats gleaming as their tails swish behind them.  
  
Baekhyun parks his truck in front of the house, and they all climb out, looking around.  
  
“This is like a movie, oh my god,” Sehun says, head swiveling from the barn to the house and his mouth open in awe. “One of those really boring farm movies.”  
  
“Dad’s out,” Baekhyun calls from the door, “so come on in so we can get you settled in the guest rooms before we start in on dinner.”  
  
The room Kyungsoo (along with Chanyeol, after a game of rock-paper-scissors that Jongin “King of Games” Kim loses spectacularly) was obviously once Baekhyun’s older brother’s room, the walls covered with posters of Apache helicopters and stealth bombers and F-16’s and the closet full of boxes in storage. Baekhyun’s room is across the hall, with the guest room next-door, and then the master bedroom at the end of the long hallway.  
  
Once they all thunder back downstairs, Baekhyun sets them each to a task in the crowded kitchen. Baekhyun’s mixing up some kind of barbecue sauce from scratch, the sleeves of his red flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows, while Kyungsoo makes up a bowl of coleslaw. Across the kitchen island, Chanyeol is pressing the ground beef into patties, lips pursed in concentration as he tries to get them all the same size before patting the balls of meat flat.  
  
Jongin and Sehun are sitting at the kitchen table, peeling potatoes and pretending to be put out about it. Jongin’s smiling faintly, though, as he drops the last of the peels into a big bowl and begins slicing, and Kyungsoo thinks he can see Sehun’s foot resting on top of Jongin’s underneath the table.  
  
As far as Kyungsoo knows, Jongin’s had a thing for the same girl at school, Krystal, for the past two years. She’s the type that’s pretty and nice, and somehow popular anyways, but he’s never gotten up the nerve to talk to her. Sehun, on the other hand, is already wearing a change of Jongin’s clothes.  
  
Kyungsoo shrugs to himself a little. Just because someone’s liked one person for years doesn’t mean they can’t change.  
  
“So where’d you find him?” Baekhyun asks, nodding at Sehun.  
  
“Picked him up at a train station. He was being attacked by a cockatrice. and we helped him out.”  
  
Baekhyun hums and then says to Chanyeol, “You can go start the grill, I think.”  
  
Once Chanyeol’s gone, Baekhyun begins pulling condiments out of the fridge, lining them up on the counter. “You can’t stop yourself from adopting them, can you?” He leans forward, digging further into the fridge, trying to find something that’s been pushed all the way to back. The butt of his jeans has been worn to a pale blue, probably from riding, and really, Baekhyun is the antithesis of a stereotypical child of Aprodite. “I mean, it makes sense, with all the parental abandonment issues we’re all bound to have. You know, found family and all that.”  
  
“No matter what anyone says, Chanyeol is _not_ my family,” Kyungsoo says vehemently, stirring the slaw a bit harder than he means to and sending little bits of shredded cabbage across the counter.  
  
Baekhyun snickers, handing Kyungsoo the paper towels. “I was talking about Jongin, but okay.”  
  
“What about Jongin?” Chanyeol asks, having come back in from the porch without Kyungsoo noticing, and Kyungsoo can feel his heartbeat in his throat for a moment when he wonders if Chanyeol heard what he said.  
  
He’s smiling like always though, looking between he and Baekhyun curiously, and without missing a beat, Baekhyun says, “I was saying that he and Sehun better be finished with those potatoes if we want to have them boiled and mashed in time to eat.”  
  
Kyungsoo lets out a breath of relief he didn’t realized he’d been holding, but when he looks up, Baekhyun’s eyes are on him again, and it’s almost like Baekhyun can see straight through him.

 

∆

 

  
Taecyeon is the one that coaches Kyungsoo through making his first real sword. He’d kind of taken Kyungsoo under his wing after that first day when they’d met at the forge, and he’s happy to supervise, helping Kyungsoo chose the lump of celestial bronze and talking him through first shaping the billet and then helping him find a rhythm of heating, hammering, and cooling as the sword begins to take shape.  
  
Kyungsoo has watched the sons of Hephaestus work in the forge all summer, almost since the day he arrived, finding himself enraptured by their ability to turn formless pieces of metal into graceful weapons and pieces of art, and he knows the forging process for the bronze swords used by demigods by heart. It’s different when he’s holding the hammer in his hand, though, and Kyungsoo is glad Taecyeon is there to support him.  
  
It’s odd, though, because it almost seems too easy. His hands will sometimes move more quickly than his brain, already starting in on the next step of the process before the words have even left Taecyeon’s mouth.  
  
“Another few seconds, and the fire would have been too hot,” Kyungsoo says when Taecyeon sends him a strange look after he pulls the half-formed sword out of the flames before Taecyeon tells him too, and he feels himself shake his head when Taecyeon says to keep hammering on one section. “It’ll work harden and temper unevenly.”  
  
Taecyeon stares. “How’d you know that?”  
  
Looking down at the metal in hands, Kyungsoo knows instinctively that it’s weighted slightly wrong, a little top-heavy and that he can fix that with one or two more dips into the fire before he begins using the fuller to shape the grooves down the center, but he can’t begin to explain why it’s so clear to him. He says, “I don’t know.”  
  
When he’s finally finished with the blade, its sharp edge glinting in the firelight, Kyungsoo feels as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.  
  
Nichkhun picks it up, weighing it in his hands and then holding it up to look down the side of it. He makes an impressed noise. “Quenching that evenly must have been a bitch,” he says, motioning to Kyungsoo’s height and then the length of the sword. “If you’d let it down into the water too fast, it definitely would have curved, but this thing’s as straight as an arrow.”  
  
Kyungsoo hadn’t had much trouble with that part, hand lowering the metal into the barrel of water smoothly, smiling as the metal had hissed and steamed as it cooled.  
  
Junho takes it next, running his finger down the grooves in the center of the sword and then looking up at Kyungsoo. “You said this is your first time forging a sword?”  
  
Kyungsoo nods.  
  
“Huh,” Junho says, handing the blade back to him and Taecyeon shakes his head, disbelieving.  
  
“I’ve never seen anything like it. I barely had to say anything. He’s a natural.”  
  
Nichkhun’s head bobs and he eyes the tools next to the anvil Kyungsoo had been using curiously. “Which hammer were you using? Because I — “  
  
“Oh shit,” Taecyeon swears suddenly, eyes fixed on something above Kyungsoo’s head. “Is that — ?”  
  
The other brothers have gathered around now and they're all staring and Kyungsoo, or well, the top of his head, anyway.  
  
“Have I got something in my hair?” Kyungsoo reaches up to swipe away whatever it is, but Taecyeon grabs his hand to stop him.  
  
“No, it’s… the mark of Hephaestus.” Taecyeon points with his free hand, and Kyungsoo cranes his head back to take a look. Sure enough, there’s a glowing read anvil crossed with a hammer hovering over his head, like some kind of magical hologram.  
  
“Does that…” Kyungsoo has to make himself swallow, excitement pulsing through him and making his tongue too clumsy to talk.  
  
“You’ve been claimed,” Junho says, a smile on his lips, and Chansung slaps him on the back with a big hand. Kyungsoo feels like he might pass out.  
  
“You’re one of us now!” Chansung says proudly. “A son of Hephaestus!”  
  
All the boys in the forge insist on going with him to tell Chiron, flocking around him noisily, and Kyungsoo has to keep reminding himself that these are his brothers now, his family. It’s a strange concept for someone who’s always been an only child, but he feels flushed with it, with this new sense of _belonging_.  
  
Chiron announces it to the whole Camp before Kyungsoo has the chance to tell anyone else, and everyone cheers, half of Hermes cabin, his now former cabin-mates jumping out of their seats to crowd around him, patting him on the back and jokingly telling him they’re glad they’ll have the bit of floor he’d been sleeping on free again.  
  
Chanyeol ends up next to him in the middle of the sort of mob, a huge smile threatening to split his face apart.  
  
“Isn’t this exciting, Kyungsoo?” he shouts over the din. “We might be brothers!”  
  
And it’s definitely something to be excited about, Kyungsoo knows.  
  
The first thing that he’d learned about Chanyeol was that his skill with fire marked him as a potential child of Hephaestus and that everyone kind of lived with that assumption, smiling and indulging him when he spent most of his free time hanging around the hearth in the middle of the forge — but hearing it out loud is something different  
  
Chanyeol is one of his very best friends, someone he trusts with his life, and he can’t explain the feeling rolling around in his gut, singeing his insides like the tiny flame of a lighter.  
  
It’s like that stomach-flip thing on steroids, winged horses in his belly instead of butterflies when Chanyeol drags him into a hug. Kyungsoo’s cheek is pressed to the cotton of Chanyeol’s T-shirt, the fabric strangely soft as it rubs against his skin, and Chanyeol is cradling Kyungsoo’s neck in one of his hands to hold him in place as they’re jostled by the crowd around them.  
  
Kyungsoo feels like his heart is trying to gallop out of his chest, along with the winged horses in his stomach.  
  
Chanyeol gives him one more squeeze, chest rumbling with laughter, before loosening his grip. Then he’s staring down at Kyungsoo, eyes brimming with happiness, and Kyungsoo realizes two things:  
  
He likes Chanyeol — really _likes_ likes him — but if what Chanyeol just said is true, then liking him is the one thing that can never, ever happen.

 

 


	3. Part 3

The bow Kyungsoo gives Chanyeol for his sixteenth birthday really isn’t anything special. Just drawing up the plans had taken him months, and his father has effortlessly made things that were far more spectacular, like Artemis’ bow, which is made out of silver, or her brother Apollo’s, made of gold. It’s a gift nearly six months late, but Chanyeol’s face is worth it.  
  
“Drumsticks?” Chanyeol looks down at the pair of bronze-colored sticks tied together with a red bow that Kyungsoo had placed in his hand. “Why are they… such a weird color?”  
  
Kyungsoo snorts. Tact has never been Chanyeol’s forte. “Twist the tip.”  
  
Chanyeol fumbles with the thinner end of one of the sticks and jumps when there’s a click, and the stick expands from both ends, mechanical joints locking into place until Chanyeol is holding a gracefully shaped bow, about five and a half feet long, with the bow string still vibrating lightly from being pulled taught.  
  
Eyes as round as _drachmas_ , Chanyeol stutters out, “This — this is…”  
  
“It’s made out of celestial bronze,” Kyungsoo says as Chanyeol tests the string, mouth still hanging open in shock as he fingers the recurved ends of the bow. “Can’t be broken or wear out. The other drumstick is a quiver once you open it up, and there’s some celestial bronze-tipped arrows for you to use.”  
  
“You — “ Chanyeol sounds breathlessly happy and the shine in his eyes when he looks up makes Kyungsoo’s chest feel tight. “You _made_ this?”  
  
“Sorry it’s so late. I don’t have a forge at home, so it had to wait for summer.” Chanyeol tests it out, plucking at the string and drawing it back, the muscles in his forearms and shoulders flexing under the thin white fabric of his shirt.  
  
“It’s taller than the one you’ve been using, to help compensate for how much taller you’ve gotten and how long your arms are now.” Despite the way his ribs feel too small for his lungs, keeping him from drawing a full breath, Kyungsoo feels himself grinning, because Chanyeol seems so happy.  
  
“You’re amazing!” he crows, catching Kyungsoo up in his arms and pulling him tight to his chest so that Kyungsoo’s cheek rubs on the cotton of Chanyeol’s shirt. He smells fresh, more like dishwasher detergent than fresh laundry, lemony and clean, and Kyungsoo gives himself a few seconds to breathe him in before making himself lean away.  
  
Chanyeol is looking down at him, lip pulled between his teeth like he’s thinking about something he knows he shouldn’t. Kyungsoo can feel the fingernails of one of Chanyeol’s hands scraping at the bumps in his spine while the other rests in the small of his back, and his mouth suddenly goes dry. Chanyeol’s lip slides free, the flesh of it shiny and bitten red, catching Kyungsoo’s eye.  
  
It’s intimate — _too_ intimate — and one of Kyungsoo’s hands fists into the fabric of Chanyeol’s shirt as he tries to anchor himself, catch his breath.  
  
Chanyeol seems to do the same thing, mouth pressing together tightly and ribs brushing Kyungsoo’s knuckles as he inhales, body tensing slightly. Then he grabs Kyungsoo by the arm and pulls him towards the archery range. “This is the best present ever!”  
  
It’s almost dusk, the sunset catching orange on Chanyeol’s hair like firelight as he picks up an arrow, fingers brushing the edges of the fletching before he nocks it. Chanyeol looks so right like this, like archery is where he fits and everything that makes him so _Chanyeol_ is welling up, bursting at the seams. Kyungsoo’s heart is caught in his throat, overfull.  
  
Both he and Chanyeol have this in common, being good at things people don’t expect. Chanyeol is known throughout camp for the way he can hold fire in his hand without hurting himself and for being one of the few that stays at Camp Half-Blood year-round.  
  
Kyungsoo tends to try and focus other things that Chanyeol is good at, things that don’t mark him so obviously as a fellow son of Hephaestus.  
  
Chanyeol is amazing at archery, somehow. His lack of focus all but disappears when he’s got a bow in his hands, and while some of the other campers just chalk it up to Chanyeol’s year-round training, Kyungsoo thinks that some of it might come naturally — just as blacksmithing had come naturally to him. A gift, perhaps, from whoever Chanyeol’s father is.  
  
Chanyeol looks wrong, too. He’s tall, like Kyungsoo’s half-brothers, but he’s thin, lean and slim-wristed, and athletic in a way that is closer to a long-distance runner than anything else. While Kyungsoo is small enough to seem out of place in his own cabin, he’s still solidly built, with thick thighs and round, solid shoulders, as though he was somehow always meant to work a hammer over metal. Being sturdy is a must if you’re going to work in a forge.  
  
Chanyeol, Kyungsoo tells himself as he watches him try out his gift on the archery range with a huge, blinding smile on his face as he hits bull’s-eye after bull’s-eye, is nothing like a son of Hephaestus.

 

 

 

∆

 

 

  
Baekhyun’s father is… well. Kyungsoo’s not quite sure what he was expecting, but Baekhyun’s father looks a bit like an 80’s Calvin Klein Jeans model that’s gone gray at the temples and spent his day working in the farm fields instead of on the beach. He doesn’t ask too many questions about why they’re all stranded in the middle of Iowa, simply asking where they’re all from and then digging into his dinner with gusto.  
  
“Um, Mr. Byun?” Kyungsoo asks midway through the meal. “Do you use that old truck around the other side of the barn?”  
  
“What, the Chevy?” Kyungsoo nods and Mr. Byun chews thoughtfully on a mouthful of potatoes. “It broke down a few years ago, right after we got the new Ford and we just never got it fixed. No need.”  
  
“Kyungsoo’s really good with cars,” Chanyeol says proudly, smiling at him from across the table. Kyungsoo feels his face go pink and ducks his head, pretending to study his plate intently. “I bet he could fix it!”  
  
Mr. Byun fixes his impossibly clear brown eyes on Kyungsoo, interested. “Is that true?”  
  
“I do some work at a garage back at home.” Kyungsoo shrugs, feeling self-conscious. “If you’ve got some tools, I could see what I can do?”  
  
Picking up his burger, Mr. Byun muses, “It’d be nice to have that thing out of the way.” He dips the edge of the burger into the sauce that Baekhyun had made up, which Kyungsoo knows for a fact tastes like barbecue heaven, looking thoughtful as he chews. “Tell you what,” he says after a moment, “if you can get it running, it’s yours.”  
  
“W-what?”  
  
“There’s a set of tools in the barn that I use for the tractor. You can take a look at it after dinner and see what you can do.”  
  
Kyungsoo realizes his mouth is hanging open and closes it with a snap. “Thank you, sir. That — that would be amazing.”  
  
They hadn’t really discussed what was going to happen after they had to leave Baekhyun’s house yet, hoping that a solution might present itself, and the very idea of having a vehicle of their very own to use is like a weight being lifted off his shoulders.  
  
Kyungsoo hardly tastes the rest of his food, too excited to get to work to think of anything else. Once they’ve had ice cream, Baekhyun drags the other three into the kitchen by the collar to do the washing up while Mr. Byun takes Kyungsoo out to show him the tools in the barn.  
  
“Everything I’ve got should be here,” he says, motioning to a large workbench area that’s been partitioned off from where the horses’ stalls are. “There should even be a light in there somewhere, since it’s already getting dark.”  
  
Kyungsoo’s already doing a mental inventory of the different tools available, fingers running along rows of socket wrenches and things, so he’ll have an idea of what he can do when he really gets a good look at the Chevy’s engine and hears Mr. Byun laughing lightly behind him.  
  
“You really know what you’re doing, don’t you? I wondered.”  
  
Kyungsoo’s used to that reaction from people, the surprise that comes with discovering that “cute, little, delicate-looking Kyungsoo Do” has made of hobby out of fixing cars and blacksmithing, but it still stings a little.  
  
“Thanks again, Mr. Byun.”  
  
Mr. Byun clasps his shoulder, the type of solid, fatherly touch that Kyungsoo has never had a chance to experience before, and it leaves the tang of loneliness on the back of his tongue. “You can thank me when you get it running,” Mr. Byun says, letting go of Kyungsoo’s shoulder to press the truck keys into Kyungsoo’s hand before heading back into the house.  
  
The humming of the cicadas reaches the top of its crescendo when Kyungsoo is arms deep in the Chevy’s engine. The feel of grease on his fingers is comforting after the stress of their journey so far, the slow, methodical rhythm of working on a car soothing the anxiety that had been piling up in his chest ever since Chanyeol had appeared in the garage yesterday — and much, much longer before that, if Kyungsoo was being honest with himself.  
  
Kyungsoo hears the footsteps across the grass before Chanyeol speaks, and feels his back tense up before he even knows what Chanyeol wants.  
  
It’s hard because even though Kyungsoo has spent years trying to snap himself out of it, Chanyeol still makes his stomach flip.  
  
“Baekhyun said the mosquitoes are crazy here,” Chanyeol says, “so I brought you out some bug spray.”  
  
Kyungsoo turns around, stopping himself from wiping his greasy hands on his jeans at the last second. “Oh, thanks.”  
  
“Want me to get your arms?” Chanyeol holds up the spray bottle and shakes it a little as he offers. His white teeth shine in the light of the lamp, smile the small, genuine one that Chanyeol gives when he’s not around strangers and makes Kyungsoo’s chest feel all tight and bound up again.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
The spray is cold on the back of his arms and neck, raising goose bumps as it dries in the night air. Chanyeol’s face is concentrated when he moves around to do Kyungsoo’s front, lower lip pulled between his teeth as he tries not to get any spray on Kyungsoo’s clothes.  
  
Having Chanyeol this close always makes Kyungsoo’s heart thump in his chest, just on the edge of a flutter, and it puts his body on high alert, taking in all of Chanyeol’s movements — even the little ones that wouldn’t matter to anyone else.  
  
“So how’s it going?” Chanyeol’s voice is right near Kyungsoo’s ear for some reason, Kyungsoo thinks he’s brushing some of Kyungsoo’s hair out of his face. When he feels the puff of Chanyeol’s exhale on his cheeks, face tilted down so he can look Kyungsoo in the eye, Kyungsoo’s heart thumps again, painfully, and it feels like he’s got a fire trying to start in the pit of his stomach.  
  
He takes a step back, almost tripping on a weird lump of grass. “Good. I think.”  
  
Chanyeol’s face tightens when Kyungsoo pulls away, pin-scrape lines showing up around his eyes and Kyungsoo turns towards the engine, feeing guilty.  
  
“It’s actually a pretty easy fix. I thought with a truck this old, maybe it would be a timing belt or the fuel injector, which would mean I would need to go get parts and stuff, but it turns out like, half the connections to the spark plugs are faulty, and it looks like maybe the wiring to the starter is loose, so it’s all electrical. And — “  
  
Kyungsoo looks up to find Chanyeol watching him, smiling indulgently.  
  
“Sorry,” Kyungsoo says, feeling embarrassed for some reason. “I get carried away, when I talk about cars…”  
  
Chanyeol shakes his head. “Don’t worry, I like it. So what’s with all the tools then? If it’s just electrical stuff?”  
  
“Oh, I thought if we’re planning to drive across the country and this thing’s been sitting here for a while, it could use a little tune up. Change the oil, check the filters, the rest of the electrical, the battery, stuff like that.”  
  
Chanyeol’s still smiling at him from his place on the hay bale. Kyungsoo’s face feels so hot it might be steaming in the humid night air, and he turns back to the engine. At least the truck can’t judge him.  
  
“Can I ask you something?” Kyungsoo wants to ask this while Chanyeol can’t see his face, but he’s not quite sure why that matters.  
  
“Sure. Anything.”  
  
“Why not Baekhyun? Why didn’t you ask him to come with you on this quest? You know he would have come if you had. Or even Kris?”  
  
Chanyeol sighs, almost a kind of laugh, like he’s already thought over the answer to this a lot. “Baekhyun’s says he’s doing _well_ this year, for once. He’s gotten off the farm to school for most of the year this year, passed all his classes, even got a girlfriend. And it’s Kris’ first year at college. His finals are this month, and I don’t… I didn’t want to bother them just when they were getting a chance to feel normal.”  
  
It’s not the answer Kyungsoo expected and he turns around again, leaning against the grill of the truck. “What, so you decided to bother me instead?”  
  
Kyungsoo means it as a joke, but the pin-scrape lines tighten around Chanyeol’s eyes and he doesn’t answer.  
  
“Hey.” Kyungsoo waits until Chanyeol is looking at him again and says, “I meant what I said to Jongin in the garage: I’m glad you asked me, Chanyeol. Really.”  
  
That seems to help a little, Chanyeol’s jaw loosening as he relaxes onto the hay bale some more, like it’s an armchair.  
  
“You had something you were supposed to do back at home instead of this,” he says after a few moments of silence, only broken by the clink of the metal tools as Kyungsoo goes back to work. “What was it?”  
  
“Mom’s marrying husband number three.” Kyungsoo shrugs. His mother is kind and beautiful and has a bad habit of marrying men she doesn’t really like. The memories he has of his childhood can all be boiled down to a simple _marry, rinse, repeat_. “I was at the other two weddings, so I told her I’d rather beg off this one. She understood. Probably.”  
  
Despite the marriage thing, Kyungsoo loves his mother. She may not always have understood what Kyungsoo was going through, but she’d given him as much love and support as she could, and with Chanyeol, whose mother had shipped him off to Camp Half-Blood before he was even in high school, right in front of him, Kyungsoo was suddenly thankful for his mom all over again.  
  
“I’m glad, you know, that you’re here,” Chanyeol says, and Kyungsoo bites his lip, checking over the battery for the telltale signs of wear. “I think I’m just hoping that maybe… if I do well enough on this quest, my dad might… claim me. If I somehow impress him, whoever he is, he might give a shit and finally want to tell everyone I’m his son.” Kyungsoo turns around to grab a different sized wrench so he can detach the manifold and see what’s going on underneath. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Chanyeol trying to smile, but only managing one corner of his lips. “That’s stupid, right? I should probably want to do it for me, or something.”  
  
Suddenly, his palms are sweaty and his ribs cramped and tight around his lungs. Kyungsoo grips the wrench to keep it from slipping out of his hand and onto the ground. “I don’t think it’s stupid to want to know your father.”  
  
And he really means it. Kyungsoo remembers the feeling, a sort of misshapenness, like you’ll never fit anywhere, that you’ll always be the odd one out, no matter what. Chanyeol’s not stupid for wanting a way out from all that, but Kyungsoo still —  
  
He still —  
  
“‘Soo,” Chanyeol says, voice a little smaller than usual, and he’s moved to sit on the edge of the hay bale, like what he’s going to say is about to burst out of him. “I’m not sure if I should…” He licks his lips nervously. “I need to tell you something.”  
  
The look on Chanyeol’s face is naked, everything he’s going to say shining through his eyes so plainly that Kyungsoo can’t possibly misunderstand, and the reality of it, of the whole situation, sends a cold flash of terror through his throat and lungs, through each ventricle of his heart as its beating skips, right down to the pit of Kyungsoo’s stomach.  
  
His feet take a step back for him, running into the bumper of the truck in his haste to get away. “Um,” Kyungsoo says, the familiar lump in his throat choking the words but somehow also letting them out without his permission, “Could we talk later? I want to get this stuff finished in time to get some sleep before tomorrow.”  
  
Chanyeol’s face falls for a moment before he has a chance to mask it. The fingers of Kyungsoo’s free hand flex uselessly in the air, like he wants to snatch the words back out of the air and swallow them instead, but it’s too late for that. The expression on Chanyeol’s face is forced now, the corners of his closed-mouthed smile hitched up.  
  
“Sure,” he says, getting up off the hay bale and brushing the straw off his pants with tense hands. “No problem.”  
  
Kyungsoo’s nod is jerky, and he watches as Chanyeol shoves his hands into his pockets and walks away. Once he’s gone, Kyungsoo sags against the car, wrench hitting the ground with a thump. His chest is on fire, an ache that reminds him of the pain of his shoulder injury, and he clutches at it, trying to breathe.  
  
All the emotions in Chanyeol’s eyes are playing back in Kyungsoo’s head. He feels sick with them, choked up and nauseous and so _so_ scared, because he thought he could handle it alone. It was never supposed to be _both_ of them.  
  
Kyungsoo sides down the front of the truck, curling his knees into his chest and wrapping his arms around them, like it’ll keep him from falling apart. His head drops back, thumping against the bumper as he looks up at the sky, filled with more stars than a city dweller like him has ever seen. The moon is bright and low near the horizon, and Kyungsoo can feel his lips trembling, like he’s going to cry.  
  
It was never supposed to be either of them at all.

 

 

 

∆

 

 

  
No one has ever made Kyungsoo feel small like his father does. Hephaestus fills the space of the forge, crooked shoulders broad with muscles from his blacksmithing, and even at this more human height, the top of his misshapen head brushes the ceiling.  
  
His hands seem restless, fiddling with the remnants of a small automaton of a cat that Kyungsoo remembers seeing Taecyeon working with earlier that day. “Not enough joints in the tail,” he mutters, turning it over. It looks so tiny in his palms and Kyungsoo can see what he means. Cats move like the smooth slide of oil and Kyungsoo thinks there needs to be at least three more jointed sections to properly emulate the swishing and curling of a cat’s tail instead of the way it’s jerking back and forth now.  
  
He doesn’t say any of this out loud, tongue sticking in his mouth when his father shifts his eyes from the figure in his hand to Kyungsoo.  
  
“You know why I’m here.”  
  
Kyungsoo swallows down the lump of nervousness in his throat. “Yes, father.”  
  
Last night at dinner, when Kyungsoo had gone to the fire to give the daily offering of food to his father, he’d muttered into the flames as they burned his barbecue into sweet-smelling smoke, "father, I have a… request. If I could just meet you &mdash "  
  
Then Chanyeol had bumped into Kyungsoo accidentally, cutting him off with an apologetic grin, and the moment had passed. Kyungsoo had never actually expected it to actually _work_ , for Hephaestus to actually come see him while Kyungsoo was working all alone in the forge to clear his head later that night.  
  
“You’re brave to make a request of a god,” Hephaestus says, and his eyes are a dark brown, just like Kyungsoo’s, but their intensity makes them seem more like wood burning in the hottest part of a hearth fire.  
  
“I want — “ Kyungsoo clears his throat and tries again, “I would like to come and work as an apprentice in your forge.”  
  
If possible, Hephaestus seems to grow even larger, casting a shadow over Kyungsoo and blocking the firelight. Kyungsoo thinks the room might be stretching to hold him, the mortar creaking and bending above them. “What makes you think that you’re worthy to work in my forge?”  
  
Even though he’s been in the heat of the forge for hours, Kyungsoo suddenly feels too warm, like he’s flushing with embarrassment. He pushes the feeling down. Growing up, his shorter height hadn’t won him any fights, but Kyungsoo had learned what a mistake blushing was with a face like his.  
  
Drawing himself up as straight as he can, Kyungsoo says, “When you claimed me, I assumed it was because of my blacksmithing. I’ve been working at the garage in my neighborhood for years and they say I’m the best blacksmith Camp Half-Blood has ever had — “  
  
“And that,” Hephaestus interrupts, like the strike of a hammer, “makes you special?” The bottom of his beard begins to smoke, as though it’s caught one of the embers from the fire.  
  
Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to say to that. As far as blacksmithing goes, Kyungsoo does think he’s special, but all that has come from working hard and never listening when people told him he wasn’t strong enough to work in the forge or tall enough to lean over the engines of the cars in the shop or that he was too pretty to work all day covered in soot or oil.  
  
Willpower has been something Kyungsoo has never been short of (Chanyeol saying “you always manage to do what you’ve decided to, no matter what other people say” rings in his ears and his throat feels tight), but he feels it being stretched more and more the longer he stays here, the little elastic strands of it snapping each time each time he —  
  
“Your work is adequate, but nothing I couldn’t do myself,” says Hephaestus, uneven eyebrows drawing together and Kyungsoo still feels flushed, but now it’s from anger.  
  
He doesn’t say the obvious, of course not, you’re a god and I’m not, curling his fist around his hammer to stop the words from bursting through his lips. It wouldn’t be a good idea to anger his father, the god in charge of fire when he’s trying to ask a favor.  
  
“But,” Hephaestus says, “what people say can’t be trusted, only the work of your own hands. And what people chose to make with their own hands shows the truth inside them. People make mistakes. People lie.” The fire in his eyes darkens, as though he’s remembering something. “Metal cannot.”  
  
Kyungsoo gets it, understands the feel of unshaped metal in his hands, the ring of potential each time the hammer strikes the anvil, the way the edges of the swords Kyungsoo makes when he’s angry seem to shine more brightly, almost menacing, different from the ones he makes when he’s sad.  
  
Hephaestus is studying him, eyes smoldering embers again while his beard has stopped smoking, and Kyungsoo wonders whether he reminds Hephaestus of his mother, if the god can see the features of his former lover in the planes of Kyungsoo’s face, or if he sees what everyone else seems to. Though all his half-brothers are notoriously handsome, it’s obvious whom they get their build from. Kyungsoo hardly resembles his father at all.  
  
“If you can make something with your own hands, something true. Something that not even I could make,” Hephaestus’ voice seem softer around the edges, like the _whoosh_ of air through the bellows of the forge — he sounds, Kyungsoo dares to think, almost fond, “then, my son, maybe, I will grant your request.”  
  
Kyungsoo’s breath catches in his throat. “Th-tha — “  
  
There’s a gust of air and ash, causing Kyungsoo to drop the hammer he’d been holding to cover his eyes as he coughs at the harsh taste of soot in his lungs. When he looks up again, he’s alone in the forge.  
  
“Thank you, father,” he whispers at the stone ceiling, and reaches down to pick up his fallen hammer. The weight of his Hephaestus’ promise makes it feel heavier in his hand than before.

 

 

 

∆

 

 

 

“Hey,” Chanyeol says, peeking around the door of the forge. “I thought we were hanging out after lunch?”  
  
Kyungsoo is working on an automaton of a flower that’s meant to grow, bloom and then wilt over and over again. Head throbbing from the heat of the forge and the way he’s having to squint at the hinges of each little petal, he aches to take a break and get away from the hot air of the forge. It’s only a little ironic because he’d come in here to catch a break from Chanyeol in the first place.  
  
“Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol is closer now and Kyungsoo can feel the way Chanyeol’s hand hovers over his back, as though he can’t decide if he’s allowed to touch or not. “Kris is supposed to try and beat the Camp record on the climbing wall again. Should be a pretty good show.”  
  
Fingers slippery with sweat, Kyungsoo continues fiddling with a tiny peg for one of the hinges as he speaks without looking over his shoulder. “I’m not sure watching Kris fall off the climbing wall into a sea of lava is the best entertainment for after lunch.”  
  
Chanyeol is so close that Kyungsoo can hear him lick his lips over the mumbling of the fire in the hearth and the peg slips from Kyungsoo’s fingers. Swearing, Kyungsoo wipes his fingertips on his work pants and moves forward, trying to shift out of Chanyeol’s reach as he grabs at the peg again.  
  
“Did I… did I do something?” Chanyeol asks, voice unsure in way that makes Kyungsoo’s chest feel wobbly, like a chariot with a loose wheel.  
  
Kyungsoo keeps his voice steady, though, just like his hands as he holds the tiny metal petals of the flower in place, trying to get the peg to fit again. This, at least, he has control over. “What makes you say that?”  
  
“Nothing,” Chanyeol says quickly enough that Kyungsoo knows it isn’t nothing at all. He can hear Chanyeol shifting from foot to foot behind him. “It’s just that you won’t look at me, you haven’t been, and I don’t know what I did wrong.”  
  
At last, the peg slips into place, the hinge practically invisible now that all the parts are where they should be. Kyungsoo straightens, suddenly aware of the sweat sluicing down his spine and the sides of his face, and when he turns, Chanyeol looks at him tremulously for a moment before staring down at his hands.  
  
There’s a tiny lick of flame in one of them, brushing up against the edges of Chanyeol’s palm, as though it’s trying to calm him, and the blue bits, the hottest part of the fire, is resting against his skin and dipping into the lines there.  
  
Kyungsoo suddenly remembers his first day at Camp Half-Blood, when Kris had looked at Chanyeol after Kyungsoo had asked if he was a son of Hephaestus, and had answered _he’s always… gotten along well with fire_.  
  
Now, Kyungsoo has been around long enough to know what Kris had meant by it, in more ways than one.  
  
“It’s not you,” Kyungsoo says. “I mean, you didn’t do anything.” Chanyeol looks up at him, and Kyungsoo hates himself, because that sounds like the beginning of a break up speech, and this isn’t — “I just need some space.”  
  
Chanyeol must let out a breath, because the flame in his hand gutters, curling between Chanyeol’s knuckles. “Right,” he says, strangely, hand closing over the flame, putting it out. “Okay.” And then he smiles, and it hurts, digs right into where Kyungsoo’s chest was wobbling before. Kyungsoo sucks in a breath, so thick with the smoke of the forge that it hurts to swallow.  
  
The knuckles of Chanyeol’s closed fist are turning white, but he doesn’t look angry. It’s more like he’s just figured out something, and there’s a second where Kyungsoo realizes Chanyeol probably has it all wrong and almost blurts the whole thing out.  
  
But then Chanyeol’s fist relaxes and the moment passes.  
  
“Okay,” Kyungsoo says. It’s better this way, if he never says anything. Talking about the possibilities would only make it worse, and Kyungsoo knows better than to play with fire like that.  
  
Turning back to the flower on the worktable, he pretends to be busy again with its petals. Kyungsoo had hoped his father might take be impressed with it but now it seems crude, contrived, with nothing truthful about it at all.  
  
Chanyeol leaves the forge so quietly Kyungsoo doesn’t hear it, but he can feel when Chanyeol’s gone anyway, and grips the metal tighter until the edges dig into his palms.

 

 

 

∆

 

 

 

Just like Baekhyun’s beefy F-450, the Chevy has a growly sort of purr when it gets above about sixty-five miles an hour on the highway, if a little more labored than the newer truck.  
  
Kyungsoo isn’t worried. The truck’s tuned up pretty well for a fifteen-year-old automobile, and he’s pretty confident that if anything goes wrong, he’ll at least be able to keep the thing running until they get to Yellowstone.  
  
They’d left Baekhyun’s house just as the sun began to rise, waving goodbye to he and his father as they drove down the farm’s dirt driveway. The rays of light are cutting through the humidity across the fields that stretch for miles in every direction, gold and purple and pink in the sunrise, and Kyungsoo’s never seen such a wide horizon.  
  
Jongin and Sehun had piled into the back of the cab before Kyungsoo could get a word in edgewise, and he turns around to look at them. Jongin’s got his face pressed against the window, lumpy Linkin Park sweatshirt (that he’d stolen from one of his older sisters) bunched up under his chin as a makeshift pillow, and Kyungsoo smiles at him fondly. Over the past couple of years, Jongin’s become like his little brother, endearing and irritating in equal measure. Sehun’s curled up into himself next to the other window, head pillowed on his knees as his arms hold his legs into his chest. He looks much smaller like this, younger.  
  
Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that they’re all really just kids, demigod or not.  
  
Chanyeol’s driving because he’s had his license the longest, and he’s staring out at the road with a slight frown, making what Kyungsoo has always called his “thinking face”.  
  
Sure enough, after they’ve been on the road for about an hour, Chanyeol says, “I’ve been thinking: the flight attendant. She had snakes for hair, so she must have been a Gorgon, don’t you think?”  
  
Kyungsoo ponders this for a few minutes. “Yeah but I got a really good look at her eyes and definitely didn’t turn to stone.”  
  
“Medusa was the only one of her sisters that could do that, though, and she did say something about having sisters so…” Kyungsoo makes a noise of agreement, and Chanyeol nods to himself, looking pleased that Kyungsoo likes his reasoning. “I think she was the oldest one, Stheno.”  
  
“…Bless you.”  
  
“No, it makes sense,” Chanyeol insists, sounding amused, and Kyungsoo can feel a little of the tension that had built up from the night before starting to crumble. “The English spelling, I mean, with “s t h” being the same in both names.”  
  
“Well, whoever she was, she won’t be back for a long time.” Kyungsoo tries not to think about what she’d looked like once her pretty flight attendant act had been dropped, how terror had clawed at his insides from just one look at her face, or how her brass claws had been so sharp they’d torn through the flesh of his shoulder like it was paper. He’s glad she’s nothing more than dust now.  
  
Chanyeol runs the fingers of one hand over his lips, thinking face still in place. “She also said something about my father when she attacked me… like, ‘you’ll pay for what your father brought upon me and my sisters’. What do you think she meant?”  
  
Kyungsoo doesn’t know of any stories involving Hephaestus and the Gorgons, but not all of the god’s stories have survived the centuries, so it’s definitely possible. Instead of saying that, though, he shrugs. “Who knows? She was acting pretty crazy.”  
  
Chanyeol hums, still looking pensive, and Kyungsoo reaches down to turn on the radio to have something to do with his hands. It shouldn’t be uncomfortable, now that they’ve broken the silence, but Kyungsoo can feel the thread of unfinished conversation from the night before hanging over their heads as they make their way across the eastern half of Nebraska.  
  
It’s better once Jongin and Sehun wake up, their funny, slow-paced form of chatter filling the cab, but Kyungsoo can feel every inch of space between he and Chanyeol, the thread pulled tight between them, almost ready to break.  
  
The break doesn’t happen until their third pit stop, after they’ve crossed the boarder into Wyoming and pull off the highway at Cheyenne. They’re parked at a McDonald’s because Jongin had begged for some chicken nuggets, and Kyungsoo takes the chance to stretch his legs, walking around the parking lot with his hands shoved into his pockets.  
  
It’s kind of chilly, a dry wind whipping across the flat terrain, but the fresh air is refreshing. He’d been driving since North Platte, and his back feels as though it’s formed to the shape of the driver’s seat.  
  
Chanyeol’s gotten out to stretch his legs too, leaning against the side of the truck and staring up at the huge shape of the golden arches on the sign fifty feet above their heads, high enough that it can be seen from the highway. It’s a little strange that he didn’t rush inside with the other two boys in search of food, but he’s been looking a little pale all day, lips almost permanently curved downward, and Kyungsoo wonders if riding in the car so much is making him carsick.  
  
Kyungsoo heads back over to the truck, tapping the toes of his shoes against the tires to check their air pressure. He can feel Chanyeol looking at him, arms crossed tightly across his chest.  
  
“About last night…” Chanyeol says, and Kyungsoo’s shoulders tighten up instantly, until he feels like they’re sitting up around his ears.  
  
“Should we really be talking about this now?” he says, glancing quickly over his shoulder at the restaurant. He can see the other two sitting at a table by the window, stretched out in the booth and sipping their drinks lazily. “Jongin and Sehun might come back out here any minute and I — “  
  
“Why won’t you just let me say it?” Chanyeol interrupts. Kyungsoo meets his eyes accidentally, chest full of that awful shivery feeling, like his heart’s about to burst. “You already know, so why wont you just let me?”  
  
Because putting air to it would make it real, Kyungsoo doesn’t say, instead curing his hands into fists inside his jeans to keep them from shaking. “No, I don’t know,” he lies, and his heart nearly breaks through his ribs when Chanyeol grabs him by the shoulders, thumbs pressing into his collarbones.  
  
“But you do know! You have to know — “ Chanyeol takes a gulp of air an then the words are tumbling out, past his lips, “You have to know how much I like you, Kyungsoo. I really, really like you.”  
  
It feels worse than Kyungsoo could have even imagined, the traitorous flip of his stomach turning to a fearful twisting, and the burst of joy threatening to bubble up inside of him being eaten up by the monstrous guilt, bleeding into his insides and pulsing through his arteries and veins until Kyungsoo’s surprised it’s not seeping out of his skin, like black ink.  
  
“It’s not — “ Kyungsoo’s chest is aching again, heart tripping over beats until he’s short of breath. He pulls himself out of Chanyeol’s grip, struggling a little at the tightness of his hold before he can take a step back, trying to get some air. “We _can’t_. Our father — ”  
  
 _Our._  
  
Glittery eyes going hard, Chanyeol’s hands drop to his sides. He’s shaking, tiny little tremors that Kyungsoo can see in his shoulders and jaw, and Kyungsoo can feel himself trembling too.  
  
Then Chanyeol laughs, but it’s not a nice sound, shaking and flat in the middle with something almost like grief. “That’s one of those things they don’t tell you when you find out you’re a half-blood. ‘Surprise! The person you’re in love with may end up being your half-brother!’”  
  
Kyungsoo swallows, throat scraping like he’s got a mouthful of ash. He’s never said it out loud before. It sounds so much worse hanging in the air between them than it had echoing around in his head for the past two years.  
  
“Chanyeol — “ Kyungsoo’s throat is thick with all the things he’s promised himself he’d never say. and he tries to wet his mouth to speak, licking his lips,. Chanyeol’s eyes drop involuntarily to follow the movement and Kyungsoo can feel the bile stinging his throat. “Just — don’t.”  
  
“‘Don’t’? So we’re just never going to talk about it? Pretend like it’s not there?”  
  
“Yes!” Kyungsoo was — well, not happy doing that, but definitely safer. The amount of danger a conversation like this would cause, the amount of temptation, is something Kyungsoo has always known would be too much to bear.  
  
Chanyeol, on the other hand, looks incredulous. The hurt and anger on his face is all mixed together, making an expression Kyungsoo has never seen before, and Chanyeol bursts out, “You were going to avoid this forever and never say anything?”  
  
Never before has Kyungsoo wished he was someone else so much, wished he was Jongin, so he could just teleport himself away from this. “I never said anything because there’s nothing to say!”  
  
“But—“  
  
“No! No more.” Kyungsoo holds his hands out in front of them, like he wants to push Chanyeol away and Chanyeol looks like he’s been slapped when Kyungsoo goes on, “I’ve had this tied up inside of me for years, I hurt you and tried to push you away, but I just couldn’t do it, and I’ve tried and tried, but there’s nothing that can make this better! You can’t just ask me to come with you on this quest and pretend that feeling this way about each other is somehow okay, because it’s not.”  
  
The last thing Kyungsoo needs is Chanyeol’s help in breaking his own heart. “It’s _enough_ , Chanyeol,” he says, voice hoarse. “I want to be done with this, I have to be, because it hurts too much.”  
  
For a moment, the only noise Kyungsoo can hear is the low rumble of cars and trucks as they drive past them through the parking lot and the ringing in his ears. He wonders if this is what shooting someone with a gun feels like, the loud bang that leaves your eardrums screaming coupled with the kickback of the barrel that makes your body jerk back, followed by the knowledge that you’ve just wounded someone else, possibly beyond repair.  
  
“Hey guys,” Jongin calls as he and Sehun walk towards the truck. He holds out a paper bag to Kyungsoo. “I got you an apple turnover.”  
  
Kyungsoo nods, not trusting his voice, and doesn’t look at Chanyeol. He doesn’t think Chanyeol is looking at him either, instead wordlessly opening the driver’s side door and climbing inside. He might never look at Kyungsoo again, and Kyungsoo has to remind himself that that’s what he wanted.  
  
“Jongin,” he says quietly, when he opens the passenger door and remembers how close the seats had felt that morning, the thread of tension between he and Chanyeol tugging at his heart until it was painful, “you sit in the front for a while.”  
  
Jongin pushes his lip out in a pout. “But I don’t — “  
  
“ _Just_ — “ Kyungsoo snaps and then forces himself to take a breath and lower his voice, “sit in the front.”  
  
Looking cowed, Jongin nods, stepping back to let Kyungsoo climb into the back of the cab.  
  
“Here’s your backpack,” Jongin says, picking up the bag at his feet when they’re on the highway again. It’s open and Jongin obviously can’t stop himself from taking a look inside as he passes it back.  
  
“What’s that big leather glo — “  
  
Kyungsoo snatches the bag out of Jongin’s hand. “It’s nothing,” he says hastily, like he hasn’t had the hand-stitched leather glove riding around in his backpack for months, waiting for the right time. Of course, after what just happened, Kyungsoo’s starting to think that maybe there’ll never be a right time, that there never was going to be one in the first place.  
  
When he looks up, Kyungsoo sees Sehun staring at him, eyes narrowed, as though he knows what just happened. He knows that can’t possibly be true, but the air of hurt and tension in the car is unmistakable, so Kyungsoo can’t really blame him for being curious.  
  
He chooses to look out the window instead. Wyoming seems as flat as Iowa, but in the distance he can see some rocky hills, along the curve of the horizon. Jongin is trying to bicker with Chanyeol over the radio like they usually do, almost playfully, but Chanyeol is quiet, his hands tight around the steering wheel. Jongin shrugs, putting on the trashiest station he can find (which also happens to be the only one not blasting country music or Christian radio), but even the noise of Ke$ha’s latest chart-topping hit isn’t nearly loud enough to drown out he and Chanyeol’s argument as it loops endlessly in Kyungsoo’s head.  
  
He tries the apple turnover, but it’s like ash in his mouth.

 

 

 

∆

 

 

 

“So when you said python,” Jongin says slowly, “I thought you meant like, the ones they keep in zoos. Like in Harry Potter.”  
  
The rest of the drive had passed quietly, with Jongin taking a turn at driving through the severely under populated stretch of middle-Wyoming before they’d stopped to rest for a few hours in the parking lot of a Wendy’s in the middle of the night. After that, they’d stopped for breakfast at a diner and the serious lack of conversation, Kyungsoo and Chanyeol focused determinedly on their plates, had been so blindingly obvious that Kyungsoo was surprised that Jongin hadn’t said anything.  
  
They’re finally at the park now, though, the strange landscape of forest, green meadows, rainbow-colored pools and the hard rock surface of the geysers before them. There aren’t many other tourists about, especially for April, which is colder in Wyoming, but has sunny, cloudless skies, perfect for coming to see the hot springs and geysers. The forest is randomly broken up with long swathes of broken, splintered trees that look almost like they’ve been run over with a bulldozer. The bottom of these strange passageways has been packed down hard, as though by something heavy, who trunks of trees sunken down into the dirt until they’re almost flush with the surface.  
  
Kyungsoo decides that word must have gotten around about something lucking at the park, and kind of wishes that he’d stayed away too when they crest one of the small hills and break through the edge of the forest to see the serpent coiled up around Old Faithful.  
  
Chanyeol’s face is white as a sheet, even in the spring sunlight, and he fumbles for Kyungsoo’s hand. Kyungsoo flinches at the touch and Chanyeol freezes as though he’d forgotten. The ghost of Chanyeol’s fingers is there, though, on the back of Kyungsoo’s hand, and Kyungsoo is able to convince himself it’s a phantom touch, even when he sees Chanyeol relax minutely out of the corner of his eye  
  
The Python (Kyungsoo thinks it probably deserves a capital letter now because of its sheer size), seems even less pleased than they are and lets out a roaring hiss so loud the ground shakes and Kyungsoo’s stomach twists painfully. He’d thought he was all out of emotions after what happened yesterday and all the days before, but the fear is still comes, creeping in like cold air around the edges of a window.  
  
“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says, thinking about what a grim picture the whole thing makes, four teenage boys against a giant serpent the size of the MARC train, “no.”  
  
Even Sehun looks put out. “Definitely not.”

 

 

 

∆

 

 

 

By the end of his third summer at Camp Half-Blood, the second after he obtained his father’s promise, Kyungsoo has made more creations and inventions than he can count, the huge old bunker and armory filled with them, and some of the others are used around the Camp and on quests by the other campers — but none of them are _it_.  
  
 _Make something true_ , Hephaestus had said, and at the time, Kyungsoo had thought it would be, if not simple, then at least doable. Now, Kyungsoo is sure that he’s never made something truthful in his life.  
  
His last attempt is a huge undertaking, an enormous automaton meant to protect the boundaries of Camp. Kyungsoo enlists his brother’s help in carrying out the plans he’s drawn up, and for the last three weeks of the summer, almost every waking moment in the bunker, forging, tempering, welding, and polishing, until the automaton is complete.  
  
It’s a dragon, large and fierce, and Nichkhun jokingly names him Tony, after John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever, saying his metal scales reflect light like a disco ball. Tony’s gears click away as the sons of Hephaestus gather around him to offer the automaton up as an offering to their father.  
  
When he appears, Hephaestus’ head barely fits under the high ceiling of the bunker, mismatched shoulders stooped and brown eyes piercing even in the dim light.  
  
“Father,” says Taecyeon respectfully, “we made this as an offering to you, and to help protect the Camp from the enemies of Olympus and the gods, and their children.”  
  
Hephaestus looks at each of them in turn, Kyungsoo more aware than ever at how he doesn’t seem to fit in physically, even though the other boys had taken them into their brotherhood without question, and then he turns his attention to the metal dragon. He runs his fingers along the crest of its back, over the sharpened ends of its claws, and the watches the smooth motion of the tail as it swishes gently behind.  
  
“You have accomplished much,” he says finally, voice rumbling and windy like the forge bellows.  
  
“It was made using Kyungsoo’s plans,” Chansung says, and Kyungsoo flushes when Hephaestus’ eyes flash to him again, before looking away  
  
Laying his hand on Tony’s forehead, Hephaestus stoops a little so he can stare the automaton right in its glowing, mechanical eyes. Suddenly, there’s a whooshing, hissing sound, like when water steams as it cools hot metal, and their father steps back. Kyungsoo realizes with a start that the sound is actually coming from _inside_ the automaton.  
  
They all watch, mouths dropping open, as Tony, the mechanical dragon, opens his jaws and lets out a jet of real, searing fire.  
  
“My gift to you, my sons. He will protect the boundaries of this Camp for many years,” Hephastus says, and he’s actually _smiling_. His face looks different with a smile on it, almost handsome, and Kyungsoo can kind of understand what his mother had seen in the god, once upon a time.  
  
“Thank you, father,” they all chorus back. Kyungsoo’s brother’s faces are flushed with excitement, but there’s still a ball of nerves tied up in Kyungsoo’s stomach.  
  
“Kyungsoo.” Hephaestus turns towards him, back to the dragon, and the ball of nervousness pulses in Kyungsoo’s belly. “This is a work of pride, not of truth,” he says, and Kyungsoo’s stomach drops out in disappointment. “There is nothing of you here.”  
  
He’s gone before Kyungsoo can unglue his mouth to speak, a breeze of ash and the smell of hot steel all that’s left behind.  
  
Kyungsoo can tell his half-brother’s all want to ask what that was about, but his eyes are stinging, and he walks out of the bunker, away from Tony the dragon, what he’d thought was his greatest creation, without looking back.  
  
It’s nearly dinnertime, and Kyungsoo’s feet carry him to the stables, where he knows Chanyeol is probably feeding the winged horses.  
  
“Hey,” Chanyeol says, looking surprised to see him. The painful conversation at the beginning of the summer, when Kyungsoo had asked for more space, has kept Chanyeol away, just like Kyungsoo had wanted, and truthfully, Kyungsoo hasn’t seen anyone outside of the bunker for at least a week. Chanyeol’s face is like a balm for his eyes, still stinging with tears. “What’s up?”  
  
They’re standing further apart than they might have before, a whole stall between them, but Chanyeol can still tell something’s wrong with just one look.  
  
“We showed father the automaton this afternoon.” Kyungsoo swallows, dropping his eyes to study the way the hay has been trampled down into such a level layer of floor by the horses’ hooves. “He blessed it and made it breathe fire.”  
  
“Whoa! That’s cool!”  
  
“Yeah, then he told me it was a work of pride.” The words have a ring of truth to them now that he’s saying them out loud and Kyungsoo’s heart sinks. “And he’s right and now I’m starting to think — “  
  
Chanyeol leans forward, eyes wide with concern, and wow, Kyungsoo has missed his face so much his throat hurts with longing. “Starting to think what?”  
  
“That everything I make is ordinary.” Kyungsoo’s greatest fear, because even if he doesn’t look the part, Kyungsoo has always held his talent for blacksmithing and design close to his heart, a little piece of self-worth that no one could take from him.  
  
Until now.  
  
In his periphery, Kyungsoo can see Chanyeol reach out a hand like he wants to run his fingers through Kyungsoo’s hair before stopping himself, pulling back. Kyungsoo wouldn’t have minded, but he gets it, and hates that he gets it, and really, in that moment hates everything.  
  
“It’s not true,” Chanyeol says after awhile, the silence between them filled with the soft clop of hooves on hay and the swish of horse tails. “You know that, right? Everything that you make is amazing.”  
  
Kyungsoo’s head jerks up in surprise. “You don’t have to — “  
  
“I know.” Chanyeol’s studying his face, drinking him in, and Kyungsoo feels himself doing the same, and just misses him and aches, for a hundred different reasons. “I didn’t say it because I thought I had to.”  
  
Chanyeol looks sad. It was unfair of Kyungsoo to come here expecting comfort when he’s the one that pushed Chanyeol away.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he stutters, feet propelling him backwards, “I didn’t — “  
  
Chanyeol doesn’t say anything as Kyungsoo leaves, just watches as he bolts out the door, but that doesn’t stop the truth of Chanyeol’s words from ringing in his ears.  
  
 _Make something true_ , his father had said.  
  
Kyungsoo stops dead in his tracks, suddenly struck with an idea. Some of the truest things he knows are about Chanyeol.  
  
The arts and crafts area is across the creek, but Kyungsoo makes it in record time, hoping that the person he needs is still there. Kwon looks up when Kyungsoo opens the door to his special room in the cabin. He’s surrounded by bolts and bolts of fabric, with a rack holding every color of thread and trim Kyungsoo could imagine (and probably some he couldn’t) behind him.  
  
“Never thought I’d see a son of Hephaestus here, and especially not the blacksmithing prodigy, ” Kwon says, laying aside whatever he was working on (something with both leather and frills?) to stare at Kyungsoo with interest. “What can I do for you? Do you want an outfit made? Because with your thighs, I could — ”  
  
Kyungsoo interrupts, not wanting to have to picture himself in leather and frills. “I need your help making something.”  
  
If possible, Kwon looks even more intrigued. He leans forward. “What sort of something?”  
  
“How much do you know about hand-stitching baseball gloves?”


	4. Part 4

Twenty minutes later, Jongin still isn’t over it.  
  
“Seriously, how could you not say something?? That thing is big enough to dress up as a subway train for Halloween!”  
  
They’re lurking on the edge of the trees, just out of sight, and Kyungsoo’s nerves are starting to get to him. “What, did you think we were traveling cross-country so Chanyeol could slay someone’s large pet snake?”  
  
“No! Well, I mean maybe. I don’t know, it’s Chanyeol! I wouldn’t put it past him to try and kill that thing with a shovel.” The Python hiss-roars again, like bombs scraping on a chalkboard, and they all shudder. Jongin adds, “A _really big_ shovel. Gods, you could have at least said “anaconda” or something, Chanyeol.”  
  
Twenty minutes has helped Chanyeol hide some of the fear on his face, but he still looks pretty strained and nervous, eyes wide and staring at nothing while his fingers fiddle with his bow.  
  
“Um, it’s okay,” Jongin says, trying to backtrack when he sees the expression on Chanyeol’s face. “Four against one, we’re bound to win.”  
  
It’s probably the nicest thing Jongin’s ever said to Chanyeol but unfortunately, it’s overshadowed by the situation they’re in. Kyungsoo chalks it up to Jongin finally seeing how real this quest Chanyeol’s been sent on is, or something.  
  
Chanyeol shakes his head. “It should really be me that does it. Chiron gave me the job.”  
  
Frowning deeply, Sehun says, “That’s stupid. Why’d you even bother to ask us along, then, if we’re not allowed to help?”  
  
He definitely has a point, and Chanyeol nods slowly after looking around at their determined faces, the blank look in his eyes clearing.  
  
“So, our plan is…?” Sehun prompts, and Chanyeol scrubs a hand through his short black hair, reaching for a stick to draw with in the dirt around their feet.  
  
The plan they come up with is basic and pretty risky, especially with the proximity to the unpredictable geysers, but it’s the best one they can work out with what they’ve got.  
  
Kyungsoo gives Sehun a sword from his keychain, and Chanyeol pulls out an extra shield for him from his backpack, where it had been masquerading as a studded leather wrist cuff. For someone who had insisted he “wasn’t into all that hero stuff” when they’d first met at the train station, Sehun looks surprisingly comfortable with the weaponry, fitting right in between Jongin and Kyungsoo when they each take out their own weapons.  
  
Chanyeol’s got his quiver slung onto his back, a mix of arrows, all with distinctive fletching, filling it, and his bow in hand. Kyungsoo can see the orange-feathered ends of the bronze-tipped arrows he’d given Chanyeol for his birthday last summer among the collection, and it would make him smile, except that Chanyeol won’t meet his eyes, and one of them might die, and the last thing they did was argue.  
  
They’re all lined up at the edge of the clearing now, looking out at the great body of the Python. Kyungsoo can see some bison wandering around in the distance, and beyond that, the official buildings of the state park, their brown roofs rising above the tops of the tress on the opposite side of the clearing.  
  
The Python’s skin is a dark steel gray in the sunlight, and it looks like it’s sunning itself, enjoying the heat radiating from the geyser below. There’s something completely otherworldly about it, because snakes are usually thin, even the long ones, but this one is as big around as a car, and its smooth body is circled around and around the geyser at least three times. It looks more like a sea serpent from an old sailor’s story than something that belongs on dry land.  
  
“Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo tries, wanting to say something else, to wipe the slate clean of their argument, just in case, but Chanyeol waves him off.  
  
“Later,” he says, eyes saying a lot more than Kyungsoo can decipher right then, and then he shouts their signal, bursting from the trees at a sprint.  
  
Jongin and Sehun run out next, going wide to the right, closer to the Python’s head, and making a racket, shouting and banging their swords against their shields.  
  
Jogging at a much more normal pace, Kyungsoo follows Chanyeol to the left and watches the Python’s head rise at all the noise, tongue flicking out with irritation. It probably thinks that Sehun and Jongin don’t pose much of a threat, based on their size, and watches them for a few moments, head bobbing as though it’s trying to decide whether or not it’s worth it to strike.  
  
Out of the Python’s line of sight on the opposite side of the coil of its body, Chanyeol is close enough to touch the skin of the snake. He raises a hand, first brushing his fingers on one of the scales, and then rapping at it with his knuckles, but the Python doesn’t seem to notice, too focused on Jongin and Sehun and the vibrations all their noise is making. It’s scales must be too hard for a sword or an arrow to do much damage because Chanyeol shakes his head to himself, beginning to hoist himself up the snake’s side instead.  
  
Their plan, the one where Jongin and Sehun (who had stubbornly refused to be left out, despite his complete lack of battle experience) act as a distraction while Chanyeol crawls up onto the Python’s back and kills it, seems to be starting out well. Kyungsoo, who has a spotty track record at close combat at best, regardless of how things had turned out during the fight on the plane, is there to help with the diversion, and to be able to pull anyone who’s injured out of the line of fire, if necessary.  
  
Things look decidedly less promising when the Python decides to strike, body uncoiling a little more, as it lunges forward powerfully, missing Jongin by a hair. It matters little that Kyungsoo knows that regular pythons are nonvenomous, because there’s no guarantee that that will hold true to something like this, and poisonous or not, it’s teeth look frighteningly sharp.  
  
The Python hisses angrily when it pulls back and sees Jongin still standing, and the noise is even more earsplitting up close. Kyungsoo brings his hammer down hard on the dirt under his feet, hoping the vibrations will distract the snake enough for Sehun and Jongin to be able to reposition themselves. Sure enough, the Python begins to slither in his direction instead, great body unwinding more, and Kyungsoo keeps beating on the ground until the serpent is close enough to really make him nervous. By then, Jongin and Sehun have started making a racket again, stomping their feet and alternating between crashing their shields and swords together and hitting them against the dirt.  
  
It moves off towards them and tries to bite again, this time going to Sehun and missing. Jongin shouts, looking furious, and disappears with a _poof_. He reappears on the Python’s head, slicing at the thinner, more vulnerable skin there with his sword. The snake thrashes, hissing furiously, and both Kyungsoo and Sehun make a good deal of noise, Kyungsoo with his hammer on the ground and Sehun with his sword and shield against the dirt, hoping the vibrations through the ground will confuse the Python to the point of frustration and fatigue.  
  
Chanyeol’s got ahold of the Python’s body now, clinging to the mostly-smooth edges of the scales as he works his way up the thing’s great body as it uncoils more, taking Jongin higher and high up into the air on top of its head. It’s almost all the way uncoiled by now, Chanyeol about eighty feet from the head.  
  
At last, infuriated by the constant pounding through the ground and the bladework Jongin is doing using it’s head, the Python thrashes enough to throw Jongin off, sending him plummeting to the ground. The fall would surely hill him, and Kyungsoo runs forward, arms outstretched, even though he’s nowhere near enough to catch him, but something suddenly slows him down, cradling his head to keep it from lolling back, and making him drift down to the ground, like a falling leaf.  
  
Sehun catches Jongin in his arms, sword and shield on the ground beside him. Kyungsoo can see him say something, probably asking if Jongin is okay, but can’t hear anything over the Python’s deafening hissing and the sound of its body moving against the rocks as it moves over the mouth of the inactive geyser to get closer to where Jongin and Sehun are.  
  
“Look out!” Chanyeol shouts suddenly. Kyungsoo looks up, seeing Chanyeol clinging to the serpent’s upper-body, staring down at Jongin and Sehun with alarm.  
  
Kyungsoo realizes after a moment what’s got him so freaked out: the Python has quickly surrounded Jongin and Sehun, coiling the circle tighter and tighter, blocking them from view.  
  
Kyungsoo suddenly remembers, pythons are the ones that _strangle_ their prey to death and then eat it whole. Jongin could teleport himself out, but Sehun is trapped.  
  
He tries the hammer trick again, thumping out a rhythm on the stone, but the Python ignores him.  
  
God, Kyungsoo feels fucking useless, knowing that even if he could make it over nearer to where Jongin and Sehun are hemmed in, there’s nothing he could do against five tons of Python meat.  
  
Adrenaline is thrumming through Kyungsoo’s system, pressing his hero reflexes into gear, and he looks around, quickly taking in every detail of their surroundings.  
  
The bison have moved off, none of them in sight, and it’s obvious now when he looks at the line of trees at the edge of the clearing that those large swathes of forest that had been crushed and flattened had been paths that the Python had used to get to and from the geyser. The geyser itself, the big famous one at least, is beginning to steam more heavily than before, and that’s when Kyungsoo sees it:  
  
The end of the Python’s body lying squarely over the mouth of Old Faithful.  
  
In some strange way, Kyungsoo can also _feel_ it, the volcanic activity under the surface, can sense the slow build as water meets magma and the pressure builds up, and up, and up —  
  
He can hear the telltale rumbles, feels something strange tingling in his fingers, and yells to Chanyeol, who is watching Jongin and Sehun helplessly as the Python hems them in, “Chanyeol, the geyser!”  
  
Just then, the water begins bubbling up, spilling out from under the snake, unable to lift its weight. The water is hot enough to catch the Python’s attention, though, it’s head swiveling around as the geyser really gets going, the pressure behind the water causing it to spray around its body.  
  
One glance tells Kyungsoo that Chanyeol’s taken the opportunity to scramble the rest of the way up the snake, standing atop its head as it hisses, jaw open wide as the bottom half of it thrashes in agony from the boiling water. Kyungsoo can feel the wave of heat from the geyser on the wind, and cringes as he remembers that the easiest way to kill a snake is to pour pot of boiling water on it. Crouching down, he presses his palms to the dirt, feeling the true eruption still brewing, and imagines opening the pressure releasing like opening a shaken-up soda can.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Kyungsoo sees a bit of metal flash in the sun when he stands again, and watches as Chanyeol nocks one of the orange-feathered brass arrows and takes a direct shot into the Python’s wide black eye.  
  
The effect is almost instantaneous, Chanyeol’s close proximity probably sending the arrow straight through the Python’s eye into its brain, and it burst into dust, the cloud of it surrounding Kyungsoo and making him shut is eyes as the grains assault his face. He can’t see it, but he knows Chanyeol is falling, now supported by nothing more than air.  
  
He hears the geyser burst to life again, now unrestricted, like the earth below is letting out a deep sigh, and thinks maybe, over the noise of the pillar of water, he hears Sehun let out a shout.  
  
The dust takes too long to dissipate and Kyungsoo covers his mouth with his sleep and squints, trying to see well enough to walk. It turns out the others aren’t far, the dust clearing finally to reveal Jongin and Sehun gathered around Chanyeol on the ground. Kyungsoo rushes over and drops to his knees. “Oh my god,” he says, voice scratchy and breathless from inhaling the dust. “What are you, insane?”  
  
Chanyeol looks miraculously unhurt, and Kyungsoo assumes Sehun did his wind magic trick again to break the fall. He shrugs, trying to sit up. “I mean, probably at least a little? Maybe the satyrs will write a song about this, though, and call it _Grudge Match at the Geyser_ or something. That’d be worth it.”  
  
“I seriously saw my life flash before my eyes,” says Sehun flatly, sagging to lean back on his hands, probably tired from stopping people from falling to their deaths. “There wasn’t nearly enough sex in it. I was disappointed.”  
  
Jongin’s ears go red, but Sehun doesn’t seem to notice. “I mean, if my life were a movie, I don’t think I’d go see it. Well, except for the past couple of days, anyway. Those were okay.”  
  
The sad loneliness that Kyungsoo had seen in Sehun’s face when they’d saved him at Odenton Station is all but gone now, replaced by a sort of easy confidence, and softer edge to his smirks. It’s a good change, Kyungsoo thinks.  
  
His mood sinks when he realizes that he’s gone and grabbed Chanyeol’s hand. Chanyeol’s looking up at him like a wounded animal, dust in his hair and on his cheeks, and he opens his mouth, the set of his lips uncertain —  
  
“ _What have you done?_ ” a voice demands, so loud it shakes the earth beneath them. Kyungsoo turns, and standing next to the mouth of the giant geyser, is the silhouette of a woman watching them and glittering, as though she’s made of sand.

 

∆

 

“Wait up, Chanyeol — “ Kyungsoo pants, almost breaking into a jog so he can keep up with Chanyeol as he winds through the rows and rows of strawberries in Camp Half-Blood fields.  
  
Chanyeol’s long legs are eating up the dirt in long strides that Kyungsoo’s legs can’t even pretend to compete with. “You said you wanted space.”  
  
“That’s not —“  
  
Except it is. Chanyeol has given Kyungsoo exactly what he asked for. No long stares across the tables at dinner, or evenings spent on the sparring fields stargazing while Chanyeol turned the baseball his mysterious father had given him over and over in his hands, or even early mornings, when Chanyeol used to drag Kyungsoo out of bed to take an early ride over the shore to watch the sunrise.  
  
It’s just…  
  
“Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo tries again, surging forward to catch the back of Chanyeol’s shirt in his fist to stop him from walking away. “I didn’t — I still want us to be friends.”  
  
Chanyeol’s shoulders are wound up, the tension showing through the fabric of the T-shirt pulled tight around Kyungsoo’s fingers, but he’s not trying to get away anymore, so Kyungsoo pushes on. “I didn’t mean we couldn’t still talk or hang out. It’s not like I — “ _didn’t want you anymore._ Kyungsoo can’t make himself say it.  
  
He remembers what the constant, dull ache of being unclaimed by a father who’d left before he could even be remembered is like, and though Chanyeol always makes light of it, Kyungsoo knows that being sent to Camp year-round by his mother has left Chanyeol feeling unwanted by the two people in the world that should have cared for him most.  
  
Staring at the dirt under his shoes, Kyungsoo says more quietly, “I’m sorry.”  
  
The sun is hot overhead without the cover of trees and Kyungsoo’s apology feels loud and naked as they stand together in the middle of the strawberry field.  
  
Peeling Kyungsoo’s fingers away from his shirt one-by-one, Chanyeol wraps his hand around Kyungsoo’s wrist. His fingertips are rough from archery, calluses from nocking arrows and skin rubbing against fletching day in and day out, along with the various marks and scars they all had from sword practice, climbing, and other training, and Kyungsoo likes how the marks are different from the ones he’s gotten from his work in the forge. Their nails are both kept short, though, and it makes each of their hands look like one half of a strange pair, different but somehow matching when put together.  
  
Chanyeol is quiet for a long time. Kyungsoo tries to figure out what he’ll do if Chanyeol tells him he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, that he’s happier without Kyungsoo around, that Kyungsoo’s really messed this up for good.  
  
When Chanyeol opens his mouth to speak a few minutes later, Kyungsoo still has no idea.  
  
“It’s okay, you know.” Chanyeol drops Kyungsoo’s hand and kicks at the dirt a little. “I know I can be… kind of a lot. And I get that you wanted space from that.”  
  
“No!” The word is out of Kyungsoo’s mouth before he can stop it. Chanyeol’s shoe stops scuffing in the dirt and Kyungsoo licks his sun-dried lips before going on. “It wasn’t that. It’s — it was nothing. Forget it. It was about me, not you.”  
  
When he looks up, Kyungsoo can’t read the expression on Chanyeol’s face and his heart clutches painfully, like a steel-gloved hand is gripping it. _I really messed up_ , he thinks, grabbing at Chanyeol’s hand where it’s hanging against his side and insisting “I take it back” because Kyungsoo thought he could do this, thought he could hurt Chanyeol now to fix things in the long run, but he just… can’t.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo says again. “Forget I said it. Please.”  
  
Chanyeol’s pulse is hammering away under Kyungsoo’s fingers, the wind ruffling their hair and carrying the smell of hot, caked earth up from the ground. Kyungsoo can see Chanyeol considering, can feel the unevenness of the dirt under the soles of his sneakers and the tart smell of the slowly ripening strawberries rising up with the hot air, and the uncertainty is crawling under Kyungsoo’s skin, pulling his ribs too tight as the silence stretches out between them further and further.  
  
“Okay,” Chanyeol says finally, gripping Kyungsoo’s hand back. He smiles a little, not one that shows all his teeth, but it’s something. “Besides, I need someone to help me show Zitao his own reflection in the shore and see if he falls in love with it. There’s a bet going.”  
  
Kyungsoo allows himself to let out the breath he’s kept clutched tight inside of himself, and smiles back. “Lu Han’s idea?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
And it’s — well, it’s not fixed, but it’s better, and Kyungsoo can breathe again, even if sometimes Chanyeol will look at Kyungsoo when he thinks Kyungsoo isn’t paying attention, like he knows Kyungsoo hasn’t told him the whole truth.

 

∆

 

The woman actually _is_ made of sand, Kyungsoo realizes, glittering and yellow in the sun, while her cloak is made up of something darker, probably dirt from deeper in the ground. It ripples as she moves towards them, reminiscent of regular fabric, and her face is blocked by a layer of dust hanging before it, like a bride’s veil.  
  
“My son!” her voice booms again, like the grind of stone on stone, or the rumble of a rockslide. “You murdered my son!”  
  
“The great big snake was your son?” Chanyeol blurts tactlessly, sounding disbelieving. To be fair, Kyungsoo is too, because a woman made of dirt with a giant serpent for a son, sounds pretty weird.  
  
The woman draws herself up to her full height (or well, her full height in this form, probably) and says with a voice like an earthquake, “I am Gaea, goddess of the Earth, and you just slew my son, the great Python, that was once the guardian of the center of the Earth.”  
  
Kyungsoo gulps. Gaea was… not someone that should be messed with, and even if they’d only been carrying out a quest for Chiron, this was probably not going to go very well.  
  
“You will give penance for his death!” she demands, her dark robe churning violently around her, and she’s towering over them now, casting a dark shadow across Chanyeol’s body.  
  
Her hands are delicate and long-fingered even though they’re made of sand, pointing at them all. Then she throws her arms out, like she’s conducting a symphony, and her cloak billows and streams down around as though it’s being caught by the wind, except there’s no wind to speak of.  
  
“Penance!” The ground is beginning to shake, her voice like the tearing of the ground when mountains are formed, the shift of sand in the wind, and to Kyungsoo, it’s like he can hear death rushing towards them.  
  
Suddenly, a bright light bursts into being between them and Gaea’s arms drop as she moves to cover her eyes. “Not this one, Earth Mother,” says a man’s voice, and when the light dims, there’s a teenager standing there, hands in the pockets of his jeans. He smiles and shakes his head at Gaea. “Not my son.”  
  
Kyungsoo trades confused looks with Jongin, no idea what’s going on.  
  
“A son for son would be fair,” Gaea says, the harshest of her earth-shattering sounds muted now and her cloak all smoothed out.  
  
“Except mine won’t reform in Tartarus and yours will, so that’s a little unfair. Not to mention how Python terrorized the local mortals for sport and ate them while he sunned himself like a lazy cat.” Gaea looks as though she’s about to object when the teenager adds, smile so wide it looks almost cruel, “You remember how this story ends, Earth Mother, let it go.”  
  
The ground beneath them shudders, angry and a little reluctantly, and the sand figure of Gaea collapses in on itself, piling at the teenage boy’s feet.  
  
He turns to look at them all, smile back to its previous width, which is still bright enough to blind someone if they were to look directly at it. “Good to see you following in my footsteps, son.”  
  
Kyungsoo wants to point out that he’s probably the same age as the rest of them, a slightly rumpled T-shirt hanging off his shoulders and casual loafers on his feet, and there’s no way one of them could be his son — but there’s something familiar about his face. The edges of his smile, or his cheekbones, or maybe the pretty, wide curve of his eyes.  
  
“Apollo,” Kyungsoo breathes at the same time the teenage boy says, “Chanyeol, son, I can only stay while the sun is overhead.”  
  
“What?” Chanyeol is still half-sitting, half-lying on the ground, staring up at the god with disbelief. “Me?”  
  
Apollo laughs, bright and fast, like a solar flare. “Yes, you.”  
  
Chanyeol scrambles to his feet, brushing off his pants with his mouth still open, and Apollo smirks and points to something over Chanyeol’s head: a glowing, golden lyre, his own symbol.  
  
Something in Kyungsoo’s chest bursts, heart beating against his ribs like the frantic wings of a bird desperate to take flight.  
  
Chanyeol is the son of _Apollo_.  
  
“You’ve completed your quest and you’ve been claimed,” says Apollo, looking at Chanyeol almost fondly, “but you still must complete the payment of penance for the Python’s death. Gaea values all her children more than the world and if I just let you go, she’ll be a bitch about it for the next few centuries.” Chanyeol nods, still looking shell-shocked, and follows Apollo when he beckons for Chanyeol to follow him as he walks a little ways away, further from the geyser. “The traditional thing is ritual cleansing and silen…”  
  
Soon, they’re out of earshot and Kyungsoo takes a gulp of oxygen like he’s never breathed before. His fingers are clawing at his chest like he can pull his heart out and calm it, and his mind is swirling down the drain.  
  
“You okay?” Jongin asks and Sehun is staring at him.  
  
“Is this really that big of a deal? You had to have known Chanyeol had a father _somewhere_.”  
  
Jongin makes some kind of large motion with his hands at Sehun just outside of Kyungsoo’s field of vision and Sehun goes quiet. Kyungsoo looks over to where Chanyeol is talking with his father.  
  
He’s got his lip pulled into his mouth, classic thinking face on as he listens intently to Apollo, but even that can’t hide his sheer excitement. They catch each other’s eyes over Apollo’s shoulder, and Kyungsoo’s heart finally slows to a comforting thrum inside of him. Chanyeol’s lip slips out from his teeth and he smiles, and the rest of Kyungsoo’s world dissolves into rays of sunlight.

 

∆

 

 

Part of Kyungsoo welcomes the routine of school when he gets back to D.C., the familiar fit of his uniform blazer across his shoulders and the comforting way all of his classmates and teachers still seem exactly the same as they were before Kyungsoo left.  
  
The quest had only taken a few days, but Kyungsoo came back feeling like a completely different person.  
  
Jongin still comes over a couple times a week, but he seems much happier, bringing trashy comedies instead of trashy action films (which Jongin says are much less cool once you’ve actually _lived_ one). Kyungsoo knows that Jongin’s keeping an eye on him, making sure he doesn’t have a breakdown or something, but it’s still nice to sit on the couch and stuff popcorn into Jongin’s mouth, laughing at whatever’s going on on-screen.  
  
Kyungsoo can’t stop himself from asking, one day, “Are you and Sehun going to see each other again?”  
  
“I’m not sure,” Jongin says, sounding surprisingly okay with it, “but you know that stomach thing that used to happen with Krystal? It happens with him too, only I can talk to Sehun and not worry, and he makes me laugh. It’s just nice. I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I think I’d like to see him again, though.”  
  
On the TV screen, Lindsey Lohan has just managed to fall headfirst into a dumpster, and Kyungsoo snorts into his handful of popcorn.  
  
Jongin shifts awkwardly on the couch next to him like he always does when he’s got something to say but doesn’t know how to say it. There’s something endearing about the fact that no matter how much he grows up, some part of Jongin will always be the shy, awkward thirteen-year-old Kyungsoo had befriended years ago.  
  
“You and Chanyeol…” Jongin starts, but then trails off, as though waiting for Kyungsoo to fill in the rest of the sentence.  
  
Kyungsoo chews slowly on his popcorn to keep his mouth busy, finally answering. “What about us?”  
  
“It’s just,” Jongin says quickly, like he wants to get this out and over with, “hard seeing you make yourself unhappy. For a long time, I thought it was him that made you so sad. That’s why I was so…you know, to him, but I’m starting to think maybe it wasn’t like that.”  
  
“No,” Kyungsoo agrees, looking down at the half-empty bowl in his lap. “It wasn’t.”  
  
Things after Apollo had left them at Yellowstone to keep doing his job of driving the sun chariot across the sky didn’t go the way Kyungsoo had planned.  
  
Chanyeol had come back over to them, eyes big and round. Jongin and Sehun, Kyungsoo realized as he looked around, had tactfully wandered a little ways away, leaving them alone, and the words just came tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them.  
  
“So you’re not — we’re not — “  
  
Chanyeol shook his head, but Kyungsoo hadn’t been able to read the expression on his face, fathomless with too many possibilities.  
  
Biting his lips, he said, “About what I said yesterday…”  
  
Chanyeol just continued to stare at him, and over the years, he’s found Chanyeol harder and harder to read, but never like this. He had his eyes open, lashes fluttering down against his cheeks a few times, and he looked like he might be frowning, lips all pushed out, like there was something he had needed Kyungsoo to notice, and Kyungsoo was missing it.  
  
Kyungsoo had begun to feel his palms sweat. Was it that Chanyeol hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d said? Or maybe that now that there was a real possibility that they could maybe be together, Chanyeol didn’t want him after all? The anxiety had begun clawing it’s way into his mouth, and his next words were the only ones he’d been able to think of that might let him salvage what was left of his heart after this.  
  
“I should have just let it go,” Kyungsoo had said hastily, trying to look relaxed, like he wasn’t spewing a lie. “We’re brothers no matter who your father is. Always have been, always will be.”  
  
Chanyeol’s silence had stretched out even further and Kyungsoo had been desperate to get out, to get some air before he suffocated and to wash the lie out of his mouth.  
  
Luckily, Sehun and Jongin had rescued him then, letting him fade into the background with all their questions, and Kyungsoo had wandered off to go sit close enough to the geysers that he could feel the volcanic activity underneath them again, the movement of magma and water meeting and building up underneath the Earth’s crust a constant and comforting thing to pay attention to.  
  
The park rangers showed up then (Kyungsoo kind of wondered where they were before, but assumed the giant snake had kept them away), and they were looking for Chanyeol for some reason.  
  
Jongin and Sehun had come over after Chanyeol walked off with a group of rangers and Kyungsoo had stared after Chanyeol with his mouth open.  
  
“What is he doing? Is he being arrested or something?”  
  
“Noooo,” Jongin had laughed, “it’s the other part of his penance thing. He has to stay and help clean up the park. Apollo must have done something to the mortals so they won’t give him any trouble.”  
  
“The rangers all think the tree damage was done by some freakishly huge grizzly bear on rampage?” Sehun had looked amazed at the power of the Mist when it came to disguising the impossible from mortals.  
  
“What’s the first part, then?” Kyungsoo had asked, remembering what Jongin said, and Jongin had given him a weird look.  
  
“You mean his vow of silence? Didn’t you notice how he kind of, like, wasn’t saying anything? And how not normal that was?”  
  
“I — “ A vow of silence. Chanyeol hadn’t been giving him the silent treatment at all. “I mean, of course,” he had recovered, seeing the seriously concerned look on Jongin’s face and trying to imagine how awful he must have looked to garner that kind of reaction. “That’s what I meant. Did he want us to wait for him?”  
  
Sehun had shaken his head. “He’ll be here a couple more days at least.”  
  
Kyungsoo had pushed himself to his feet, taking one last look around. Chanyeol isn’t anywhere in sight. Then, Kyungsoo had sighed and said, “I’m ready to go home.”  


 

 

∆

 

 

For once, Kyungsoo thinks his mother’s new husband is actually pretty great. Alan looks kind of like Denzel Washington, doesn’t act like it’s unexpected that Kyungsoo spends his free time soldering things together out back of the house or working at the mechanic’s garage a few blocks over, and never once asks Kyungsoo to call him “dad”.  
  
Alan’s only fault seems to be that he’s a diehard Mariners fan, which Kyungsoo wouldn’t care two straws about if they weren’t also Chanyeol’s favorite team, and he spends the whole month of May dragging around the baggage of a totally and completely broken heart in his chest.  
  
“Hey, Kyungsoo,” Alan says, sticking his head into Kyungsoo’s room one Saturday when his mom’s been called into the office, “I was sorting through the laundry that needs to be done and found this.” He holds up the backpack Kyungsoo had taken with him on the quest. When he’d gotten home from Yellowstone, Kyungsoo had dropped everything on his bedroom floor and slept for two days solid, only waking up when his mom arrived, and after that, Kyungsoo had simply forgotten about the backpack.  
  
“I didn’t mean to pry,” Alan says, looking a little guilty, “but I opened it because I didn’t know what it was, and I saw the glove inside. Is it yours?”  
  
Kyungsoo almost shakes his head, but ends up doing half a shrug instead. “I made it.”  
  
Alan pulls the leather baseball mitt out of the backpack, running his fingers along the seams. “I thought you didn’t like baseball? This mitt is way too nice for someone who doesn’t love the game.”  
  
“It was a gift for a friend. He says he can never find a glove that fits his hand right, so I made him one.”  
  
“Well I’m sure he’ll like it.” Alan slips the mitt back into the backpack and hands the whole thing to Kyungsoo. He can probably sense something’s off, and chooses to head back down the hallway to the laundry room instead of asking about it, which Kyungsoo is thankful for, but which leaves him alone with the baseball mitt that he’d custom made for Chanyeol, which pulls at Kyungsoo’s heart until it’s raw.  
  
He pulls it out and sets it on the surface of the desk in front of him, studying each seam, every wrinkle in the leather.  
  
Making this glove had been different than when he designed and made things in the forge or the workshop. Kyungsoo had had to start all the way at ground zero with textiles, letting Kwon push him so hard he thought he’d go crazy before they’d even finished the basics. He didn’t have a natural talent for it, but every time he wanted to quit, he thought of Chanyeol, who had still had every right to be upset with him, comforting Kyungsoo and saying truthfully, “Everything that you make is amazing.”  
  
Kyungsoo isn’t sure why he waited so long to give the glove to him. Maybe because of all the work that Kyungsoo put into it, all the heart and soul, would make it mean something special, and Kyungsoo had never been ready for that.  
  
“Kyungsoo.”  
  
Kyungsoo knows who it is without turning from the way the joints of the ceiling creak and pop, as though trying to spread apart to make space for something, and so he isn’t surprised when he turns around to see his father standing in his bedroom. What he is surprised about is how strange it is to see Hephaestus in a room that isn’t filled with metal and a hearth crackling with a fire.  
  
“That glove that you’re holding,” Hephaestus says, a fire kindling in his brown eyes even if there isn’t one burning in the room, “that is something true. You made it with your own hands?”  
  
Kyungsoo nods, hardly daring to believe —  
  
“Come work in my forge and become my apprentice.” Hephaestus might actually be smiling behind his beard, and Kyungsoo feels a little bit more like himself again, the same old excitement and yearning flooding through him, the need to get away, but his reasons are different now.  
  
Like this, his father doesn’t seem quite so frightening, more like a bull actually managing to play nice in a china shop while it looks at the nice designs on the plates, but Kyungsoo still feels nervous.  
  
“I’ll have to ask my mom,” Kyungsoo says, before he loses his courage, “since I’m still in high school, I mean.” His father stares at him, like that’s not the answer he expected, and Kyungsoo quickly stutters out, “But I want to. Thank you.”  
  
Hephaestus nods, the fingers of one gnarled hand fiddling with the ends of his beard. “Your mother,” he says thoughtfully, and Kyungsoo remembers once again with a grimace that Hephaestus and his mom were once A Thing. “If she says yes, then you may come.”  
  
As usual, his father disappears before Kyungsoo can even say goodbye, and Kyungsoo is left, holding Chanyeol’s mitt in his hand, counting down the minutes until his mom comes home.  


 

∆

 

 

  
The Hephaestus cabin is emptier when Kyungsoo moves in for his fourth summer. Minjun, Nichkhun and Taecyeon are all working grownup jobs over the summer now that they’re old and trained enough to be able to protect themselves in the real world without worrying. He, Junho and Chansung spread out a little more than usual as they unpack, both enjoying the extra room and trying to take up a little more of the space left by three absent people.  
  
The rest of the Camp is filling up gradually as people arrive from their homes across the country for the summer, but the one person Kyungsoo wants to see is already going to be here.  
  
Kyungsoo’s thought about what he wants say to Chanyeol when they see each other again a hundred, a million times over, but when he finally sees Chanyeol in the stable, rubbing his nose against the velvet nose of one of the ordinary colts and laughing, all the words just go flying out of his head.  
  
“Oh,” Chanyeol says when he sees Kyungsoo, taking a step back from the stall. The colt blows a raspberry, clearing wanting more attention and unable to verbalize it like the winged horses, but Chanyeol ignores him. “I… didn’t know if you were coming back.”  
  
This takes Kyungsoo even more by surprise. “What? How?”  
  
“I overheard Chiron talking over an Iris message to your mom about your dad’s offer last week.” Chanyeol ducks his head. “I didn’t mean to.”  
  
Kyungsoo waves him off with hand, glad that he doesn’t have to explain too much. “No, it’s fine. She just decided I should wait until I’ve finish school to go away.”  
  
Chanyeol’s eyebrows go flying up towards his hairline. “And you’re okay with that?”  
  
“Yeah, I…” Kyungsoo feels himself do that weird half shrug he’d used on Alan a few weeks before, “used to want to get away, because it hurt. You know, to be here, even though I needed to be. But now, I want to go because it’s my dream, and that can wait another year, until I’m done with school.” Chanyeol nods, eyes still rounded and his mouth open just a little. It’s so endearing that Kyungsoo’s stomach does a little flip-flop, doing a full rotation inside him at how unsure Chanyeol looks. “I made something for you. Ages ago, actually.”  
  
Kyungsoo pulls the baseball mitt out from behind his back where he’d been hiding it, and Chanyeol’s expression just falls apart in surprise. “For me?”  
  
“Yeah, custom for your hand. You said you could never find a glove that fits right.”  
  
Kyungsoo had been right about one thing, anyway: there is something special about watching Chanyeol carefully take the glove out of Kyungsoo’s hands and then slide his own finger and palm inside. He’s not worried that it won’t fit — Kwon had been an amazing teacher — but he’s worried that Chanyeol won’t like it, or won’t think it means what Kyungsoo thinks it means.  
  
“It’s perfect,” Chanyeol breathes, eyes shining, and the words flood past Kyungsoo’s lips, unable to be stopped.  
  
“I’m sorry about what I told you at Yellowstone,” he says, in a rush. “I thought you weren’t speaking to me and I freaked out. And for McDonald’s in Cheyenne, too. For all of it.”  
  
Chanyeol waves his arms in front of him, the new leather glove flopping almost comically on his hand.  
  
“No! I really like you, Kyungsoo,” he says earnestly, like he’s terrified of being misunderstood again, and Kyungsoo can’t handle the reverent way he cradles the baseball glove in his hands, like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever held. “I really, really — “  
  
Unable to help himself Kyungsoo pulls Chanyeol down to kiss him, and all the nervousness in his chest just kind of melts, warm and hot in his belly. Chanyeol frees one of his hands, fingertips skimming Kyungsoo’s collarbone, making him shiver, before settling on the back of his neck, warm and steady. Chanyeol’s mouth is still a little open, catching Kyungsoo’s top lip between them, and there’s tiny sparks collecting in Kyungsoo’s belly, and everywhere Chanyeol is touching him.  
  
“You’re _definitely_ not like a brother to me,” he says against Chanyeol’s chin when they part, and Chanyeol snorts into his forehead as they both dissolve into laugher, clutching the side of the stall and each other to stay upright, the noise startling the horses.  
  
“So you’re staying this time?” Chanyeol asks, once they’ve collected themselves again, going back to trading and savoring kisses just because they’re allowed. Kyungsoo’s got his hands in the back pockets of Chanyeol’s jeans, feeling a little smug when he squeezes and Chanyeol makes a noise in the back of his throat.  
  
“Oi! Get a room, you two,” one of the pegasi calls from down the stable and Chanyeol giggles into Kyungsoo’s mouth, pulling back to breathe.  
  
Kyungsoo likes how their chests brush against each other when they’re this close, likes the way that their breath mingles between them and that he’s allowed to sling his arms around Chanyeol’s neck to pull him even closer. “I’m not going anywhere.”


End file.
